


All Your Problems Are Distractions

by sullymygoodname



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Background Relationships, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Gender or Sex Swap, Magic, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 19:25:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 41,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4191999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sullymygoodname/pseuds/sullymygoodname
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Magic gone awry! What else is new? Post-season 3A, Scott, Allison, and Stiles try a spell to focus their energies and rid themselves of the Nemeton's influence. It... goes wrong. </p><p>OR: The incredible story of how Stiles and Allison become total bros! Where Stiles gets turned biologically female while Allison becomes biologically male. They deal with this the best way they can while trying to find a way to turn them back. Meanwhile, the Nemeton looms ominously over the whole town and the werewolves of Beacon Hills are not exactly one big happy pack, either.</p><p>(Featuring: Scott McCall, Lydia Martin, Sheriff Stilinski, Derek Hale, Isaac Lahey, Erica Reyes, Vernon Boyd, Cora Hale, Kira Yukimura. Background Allison/Scott, background Allison/Isaac, friendship/pre-slash Stiles/Derek.)</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="http://amanivuote.livejournal.com/5111.html">Artwork by Ideare!</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	All Your Problems Are Distractions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blue_fjords](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_fjords/gifts).



> **Spoilers:** Assume everything happened in season 3A except Boyd and Erica are still alive because of reasons. Also Derek and Cora stick around. IDK where Peter is, let's just say he died or left town. A few details and characters from later seasons are mentioned or incorporated, but nothing of the, uh, plot. Takes place 2nd semester of their junior year, so the beginning of this fic is mid-January.
> 
>  **Warnings:** While I try my best at humor, Stiles and Allison are very much not happy with their new states of being and their displeasure is the main focus of this story. This is not meant as commentary on transgender issues or trans people and their lives, but it does touch on things like gender dysphoria and being uncomfortable in one's own body. (There's a vast difference between living with that from birth and having it suddenly thrust upon you, I'm sure, and it's a feeling I can only imagine having never experienced it myself.) There is a brief mention of a past eating disorder, also frank talk about menstruation, masturbation, and sex. However, as with the champagne room, there is no sex in this story. There's not a lot of hardcore plot to this, either, it's really more of a character study. With an excessive amount of baking.
> 
> First off, thank you so much, [theresholesinthesky](http://theresholesinthesky.tumblr.com/), for the great beta and encouragement. This honestly wouldn't have gotten done without you!
> 
> And a VERY happy (slightly belated) birthday to [bluefjords](http://bluefjords.tumblr.com/)! You fucking earned this one. And you'll have many, _many_ more, so help me God.
> 
> The story you are about to read is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the creator's imagination or are used fictitiously. This story does not reflect the views or opinions of any actual person portrayed herein.  
> ...Anyway, IT'S JUST ~~CLAY~~ ...er, FICTION!

The title is a line from the song [Accidental Life](https://youtu.be/ApOaTE4Y-jY) by Teenage Fanclub.

 _All your problems are distractions_  
_Still waiting for the main attraction_  
_And you're looking for a way out_  
_Of your accidental life_

 

* * *

 

It hurt.

It hurt _a lot_.

Stiles actually _passed out from the pain_.

It makes him feel a little better, though, when he learns that Allison did, too.

 

* * *

 

"Stiles?" Scott calls again through the bathroom door. "Stiles, are you going to come out?"

"Fucking funny, Scott!" Stiles yells back without taking his eyes off the mirror.

"Wha—I didn't mean it like that!" Scott squawks. A moment later, he says, "Seriously, though, are you okay in there?"

"Am I okay, he asks," Stiles mutters to himself, letting his eyes wander over his reflection. He rucks the hem of his t-shirt up under his armpits and stares. It just figures: the first set of real, live, in the flesh, naked boobs he's seeing are his own. And they're not even that spectacular.

The door creaks beside him with the weight of Scott leaning against it on the other side. "Stiles?" he tries again, really too loud to be a whisper. "You have to answer me, man. Because I'm freaking out here and Allison's being really quiet. Like—like _really_ quiet. She hasn't even blinked at all in the last twenty minutes."

Stiles lets his t-shirt drop back down — funny how it doesn't really fit him any differently, except maybe a little looser across the shoulders. If he stands up straight and puts his shoulders back, two small peaks are visible on his chest, but he's usually slouching anyway. His jeans fit fine, though snug around his hips. Roomy in the crotch, but he's so not ready to contemplate what's going on down there.

Releasing a long, slow breath, Stiles turns from the mirror and yanks the bathroom door open; Scott practically falls into his lap.

"All right," Stiles says, pushing Scott back up and out of his way. "Let's figure out what the hell you did to us. Allison," he calls to her sitting cross-legged at the head of Scott's bed. "Snap out of it. We're gonna fix this shit."

With a blink, and a little nod, her mascara-smudged eyes focus on him. She's changed into one of Scott's hoodies and a pair of BHHS track pants that are too short for her long legs. Her own clothes are in a pile on the floor — jean skirt, black tights, and burgundy top ripped at the seams, her new broader shoulders having stretched the material beyond capacity. Stiles spies the edges of a lacey white bra just peeking out of the bundle of clothing, and self-consciously crosses his arms over his own chest. It's ridiculous; he isn't wearing any fewer layers than normal. He ignores Scott's searching eyes when he tugs the hem of his t-shirt down and starts buttoning up his plaid over shirt.

Allison scoots to the end of the bed, letting her feet down to touch the floor. She messes with her hair for a moment, looking uncertain, before finally just twisting it around her hand and somehow tying it into a knot at the back of her head. Stiles is glad for his short hair, at least. Scott sits next to Allison on the bed, leaving a fair bit of space between them, and tucks his hands between his knees. 

Toeing at the salt line of their broken circle, Stiles picks the old book up off the floor and smooths out the pages. Scott must have dropped it when... whatever-the-hell happened. Stiles wasn't a hundred percent aware at the time, too busy writhing in agony. The pages are all wrinkled, and it takes him a minute to flip back to the spell they'd been working. Stiles can only barely read it; magic books are just never written in English, are they?

The ritual was supposed to focus their combined energies, to take that darkness around their hearts, that intangible thread linking them to the Nemeton, and strengthen their bond to each other. To transform their individual ties, unsound and vulnerable, into a sturdy, secure anchor.

Well, it transformed them all right.

How the fuck did Scott get out of this unscathed? Werewolf magic? Stiles cuts his eyes to Scott, who's busy dancing uncomfortably in place on the bed, completely unchanged. Still completely _male_. And werewolf (they checked).

The spell was Scott's idea. Stiles knows he was trying to help them, to free them from the anxiety and nightmares, also which haven't seemed to be affecting Scott. _The True Alpha._ And since it _was_ Scott's idea, and he'd been so sure of it, so earnest, trying _so hard_ to make everyone better, Stiles had agreed with very little hesitation.

When he'd woken up on the floor of Scott's bedroom, with Allison next to him and Scott crouching over them both, eyes comically wide, Stiles was afraid the spell hadn't worked.

He really needs to learn to be _more_ worried sometimes.

"Okay," Stiles says, running his finger down the page and nodding to himself. He looks up at Scott and Allison. "Yeah, we're gonna need some help."

 

* * *

 

They're not ready to take this to Deaton yet, though their reasons behind that differ. Stiles is not in the mood for his enigmatic smugness hoarding all the knowledge, letting them flounder around until they can figure things out on their own. Whatever Deaton thinks, Mr. Miyagi he is _not_. His so-called lessons don't take shape and become clear in the time and place needed. Also, Deaton's plan is what got them into this mess in the first place.

Stiles is pretty sure Scott's just trying to avoid the look of disappointment they'll all get from his mentor. Allison's still a little dazed, to be honest, otherwise she'd probably step in with better suggestions.

Not that their current choice of help isn't judging the shit out of them anyway.

"Well, this is what you get when you idiots try to do magic without supervision," Lydia says, carefully laying the book down on the coffee table in Scott's living room and looking at each of them sitting opposite her on the sofa. "No offense, Allison."

"None taken. I agree with you," Allison replies. It doesn't matter how quiet she tried to make it, her much deeper voice is still startling to hear. Especially for her. She leans back into the sofa, lacing her hands together in her lap, but quickly moves them again further from her crotch. Lydia's brow wrinkles at her momentarily before smoothing out again.

"I don't know why you think I would know how to undo this," Lydia says, mostly to Stiles. Her eyes keep roving over his face. When she first arrived she didn't even give him a second glance. Not until she saw Allison, and Scott explained the situation. Now it's like she can't stop herself from looking.

Stiles fidgets under her gaze until eventually he can't take it anymore. He stands up, paces away from the couch, then turns back to look at all of them. "What if we just do the whole thing again, only this time recite it all backwards?"

Three pairs of eyes give him three separate looks all equating to the same sentiment of _'that's the dumbest thing to come out of your mouth please stop saying words.'_

"Well then I'm out of suggestions," he tells them, throwing his hands in the air. "Because honestly my brain is too busy freaking out and wondering how the hell I'm going to explain this to my dad."

He doesn't miss Allison blanching, or the way Scott starts to shift closer to her and stop himself mid-movement. Fortunately, Lydia stands and takes one of Allison's hands.

"Come," Lydia says, pulling Allison to her feet. Lydia has to back up a couple steps when Allison stands. It's weird, but she's taller than all of them now and absolutely towers over Lydia. Allison Argent makes for a very tall man.

Stiles blinks at the thought. He looks down at himself, at his body, and the words lodge in his brain: man, woman, girl, female, _penis, penis, penis_.

"Oh, fuck," he mutters, dragging both hands over his face and through his hair. When he looks up again, Lydia has Allison by the hand once more and is leading her to the door, with the book tucked under her other arm.

"I think everyone needs some time," Lydia says. She's wearing her coat, while Allison simply has her own draped over her shoulders. "I'll look this book over. We'll reconvene tomorrow and figure out what the hell you morons have done." With that she marches out, towing a mute, passive, barefoot Allison behind her.

Scott stands next to Stiles at the door as they watch Lydia's car pull out of his driveway and disappear around the end of the block. He feels Scott's shoulder touch his.

"Do you want me to come w—"

"No," Stiles cuts him off. One glance at Scott's face, though, and Stiles bumps his shoulder. "I mean, nah, dude. I got this."

"We'll fix this, Stiles," says Scott, beseeching eyes locked on his.

"Yeah." Stiles nods, tries a smile. He hunches his shoulders, hugging his torso and clutching his elbows. "Of course we will."

 

* * *

 

All things considered, Stiles thinks his dad handles it rather well. Of course, after being abducted by a murderous druid and confronted with werewolves of every color of the eye-glowing rainbow, his dad has been more willing to believe in the strange and unusual. On the drive over, Stiles still worried about how he'd react to the news that his only son was now also maybe his only daughter, but Stiles was definitely not planning to open with that.

Unlike Lydia, however, Dad knows something's up the second his eyes land on Stiles coming through the door. But he lets Stiles ramble through the full explanation without interruption, even when he sidetracks into a few theories that only pop into his head as he's talking.

His dad is silent for a long moment, blinking at slow, random intervals. "Magic," he says eventually.

"Yep," Stiles answers, cutting off the rest of his long-winded blathering. "But we're gonna fix it, don't worry. This is just—" He gestures at himself. "It's totally temporary. And I'm still me. I'm still…"

His dad shakes his head and claps Stiles on the shoulder. "Only you, son," he murmurs wearily, and something in Stiles, something rigid and thorny, loosens in his chest at the words. He rushes forward and winds both arms around his father, squeezing with all his strength.

"I am, Dad. I still am," he chokes out, muffled by the stiff collar of his dad's uniform shirt.

His dad wraps both arms around Stiles, rocking them side to side like he did when Stiles was little. "Of course you are," he assures him, rubbing warm hands up and down his back. Those big hands wrap around Stiles's shoulders, and his dad draws back just enough to really get a look at him.

Stiles thinks maybe he's looking for his mother in there, but the truth is Stiles never bore any striking resemblance to his mom. Both of his parents always said he was the spitting image of his grandfather as a young man. Not the grandfather he was named after, no, but his dad's dad. Stiles has seen the pictures of him, back when he was just eighteen and joined the Navy, and he knows it's true.

Except for the eyes. He's always had his mother's eyes.

"You still look like you," Dad says. "My son."

After that, they sit down and eat dinner together and his dad asks why on Earth they thought doing magic would be a good idea.

"If I've learned anything from movies and television, it's don't read aloud from books written in a language you don't understand. Ever." His dad says it all while cutting his chicken, emphasizing that last word by pointing his knife at Stiles, but he says it in the same voice he'd used when Stiles was ten and decided he could totally cook dinner on his own and blew up the microwave: exasperated with a tinge of guilt, and worried, but also a tiny bit amused.

Stiles just ducks his head, ashamed and contrite, yes, but also to hide his grin. This, at least, still feels normal.

 

* * *

 

The following afternoon, Scott is just climbing off his motorbike outside Lydia's house when Stiles turns the corner onto her street. He'd had to backtrack and come from a different direction than usual because a giant fleet of moving vans were blocking the way two streets over. Looked like someone was finally moving into the Whittemore place. Stiles decides not to mention that to Lydia as he pulls up in her driveway. He parks behind Allison's car already sitting there, hops out of his Jeep, and catches up to Scott at the front door.

"So how'd you manage to shake Isaac?" Stiles asks, reaching out to ring the doorbell and listening to it echo throughout the cavernous rooms of Lydia's enormous, empty house. 

"Told him I was hanging out with you," Scott answers with a little smirk.

"Oh, ha ha." Stiles screws his face up into a mocking laugh. "You're just lucky that worked." He points his finger in Scott's face until Scott playfully snaps his teeth at it, still laughing to himself when Lydia answers the door and waves them both in.

It's no secret that Isaac doesn't like Stiles, which is just fine by Stiles — Isaac isn't his favorite either. But now that he's living with Scott, it's nearly impossible to escape him sometimes. He's _always_ around when Stiles wants to hang out with Scott. He seems to make a point to be there when they have plans to just veg out in front of Scott's TV. And he always eats all the Hawaiian pizza even though _Stiles_ is the one who orders it.

They were lucky yesterday that Isaac was hanging with Erica, Boyd, Cora, and — Stiles assumes — Derek. Stiles doesn't know what he would've done if he'd had to put up with shit from Isaac on top of everything else. Not to mention, he'd probably go and blab the whole thing to the rest of the Beacon Hills Irregulars and Stiles has been adamant about not letting anyone else in on this yet. Not unless, or until, it becomes necessary. Which will hopefully be never.

Lydia leads them through the front sitting room and the formal dining room, into the kitchen where Allison is standing at the kitchen island, mixing something in a bowl.

"Oh, cool, did you guys find a potion or something to reverse it?" asks Stiles, excitedly bouncing past Scott and Lydia to peer over Allison's shoulder. The substance in the bowl is dark and sticky, with little white chunks in it.

Allison turns her head to stare at him until he backs off a little, then she glances over him at Lydia.

"Allison's making brownies," says Lydia, like the statement doesn't make any sense to her either. "In my mother's kitchen."

"Your mother—" Scott starts, but Lydia cuts him off.

"Won't be back for a few hours. We can talk freely." She glances at Allison. "And bake, apparently."

Stiles looks back and forth between them for a minute. "Are these, like, magic brownies?" he asks. Lydia rolls her eyes and Allison goes back to her vigorous stirring. _So, probably not then._ "Please tell me you guys got something, though," Stiles says, desperately. " _Anything._ "

"I've read the ritual over and over." Lydia brushes past him and hops gracefully up onto one of the tall barstool chairs. "I know it by heart backwards and forwards. I could recite it perfectly," she tells them, tapping her nails on the book that's lying open on the countertop. Stiles leans closer, looking at the page upside-down.

Key words stand out:  
**_Anima_**. _Soul_.  
**_Animus_**. _Heart_.  
**_Committo_** or **_commuto_**. It's hard to read this tight, handwritten script, but he thinks it means _change_.

"I can only guess that you must've gotten the pronunciations wrong. And no—" Lydia pauses to look at Stiles. "I don't think trying it again will help."

"So what you're saying…" Stiles walks a circle around the island and takes the chair next to Lydia. "Is that you got nothin'."

"In about thirty minutes, we'll have brownies," announces Allison. The three of them watch her as she deftly pours the batter into a square baking pan, meticulously scraping the sides with a spatula, a look of intense focus wrinkling her brow. The kind of concentration Stiles has only seen on Allison's face in times of peril.

Although he can't say she looks very much like Allison right now. Disregarding the fact that at the moment she's a very tall, well-built man, with long hair pulled back into a ponytail at the nape and dark stubble dusting her jaw, wearing a teal apron with yellow, fluttery ruffles around the edges, Stiles can't even picture female-looking Allison doing this, to be honest. It's so outside the realm of how he knows her: natural with a bow or a knife, not so much with a whisk and oven mitts.

She seems to have traded Scott's track clothes for a pair of dark jeans and a black V-neck sweater. Stiles wonders if she'd had to borrow them from her dad. He wonders how her dad took the news. He wonders if she's taller than her dad now because he remembers that Mr. Argent is a little taller than him, but Allison looks so much bigger. She has broad, muscular shoulders tapering down to a narrow waist, and impossibly long legs. Beneath the pushed up sleeves of her sweater, her forearms are toned and strong, flexing with every movement. Allison was always a beautiful girl, but right now she is a _super_ attractive guy.

Stiles stops staring at her when she bends over to slide the pan into the oven. He blinks and averts his eyes toward the ceiling. _Holy shit._ His face is burning and he's hoping he can blame the flush on the open oven door.

"Can we go to Deaton _now_?" Scott's voice draws him back and _thank fuck_ he's not watching Stiles at the moment. He's leaning over the counter next to Lydia with his eyes fixed on Allison, that worried little furrow between his eyebrows. "We should tell Derek, at least. He might know something."

"What?" Stiles hops down off his stool. "Um, no and _no_."

Scott turns to face him. "We should get their help on this."

"We are not telling anyone else about this," Stiles insists, "and especially not Derek."

"Why especially Derek?" asks Lydia, watching him curiously.

"Wh—because!" Stiles flails. "It's Derek, he never knows anything! Just no."

"Well, we're going to need a cover story for you two," Lydia says, matter-of-factly. "Allison will have to call in sick tomorrow, and probably the rest of the week. She obviously can't go to school like this."

Everyone looks at Allison; she's got her arms crossed in front of her, staring down at the floor.

"Sure, yeah." Stiles shrugs. "But what do I need a story for? I'm fine." He's in the same shirt and jeans he was wearing yesterday because it's the weekend and why the fuck not. He feels Lydia's eyes on him and turns to face her.

"You're…" she starts.

"What?" he very nearly snaps.

"Lydia," Allison says softly. "Stiles is fine as he is."

"What about the other werewolves, then?" Lydia says, straightening in her seat. "What do we tell them?"

"About Allison's absence?" Stiles shrugs again. "Cora's already graduated so it's not like she'd notice, and she wouldn't care anyway. Erica and Boyd might be interested but they won't ask. Isaac…" he trails off and nobody leaps to fill in the blank. He does notice both Allison and Scott shift uncomfortably.

It's true that Boyd or Erica probably won't ask; they still aren't Allison's biggest fans, nor are they exactly friends with Scott considering his continued allegiance to Allison. Isaac, on the other hand, might be a problem, and they all know it. He's been drifting from Derek's side over to Scott's ever since the stuff with the Alpha pack, the Darach, and the whole Nemeton/drowning thing. He lives with Scott and his mom, but he still hangs out with Derek and his pseudo-pack. Derek isn't an alpha anymore, and Scott is now, and they both seem to get along much better after teaming up against Deucalion and Ms. Blake, but the werewolves of Beacon Hills are still divided. Stiles isn't sure they can really be considered two separate packs, since there's only one alpha among them, but neither are they a cohesive whole.

That's the other thing. It's like Derek isn't even trying to make them a pack anymore. Boyd and Erica renewed their allegiance to Derek after he got them back from the alphas, and Cora is definitely in his camp, but he doesn't really seem to be fighting to keep Isaac. Stiles sometimes wonders if Boyd and Erica weren't here, and Derek didn't feel responsible for them, if he'd have just picked up and left with Cora like she'd wanted.

As it is, Erica will at least talk to Stiles without any hints of violence... well, few and minor hints of violence. Boyd goes where Erica goes, which means he probably doesn't hate Stiles. Maybe? Hale Jr. is completely unreadable, even more than her brother, but if there's a line drawn between their two groups — one consisting of Derek, Cora, Boyd, and Erica, and the other of Scott, Stiles, Lydia, and Allison — then Isaac is the monkey in the middle, straddling it and not making up his damn mind.

He's also, maybe, developing a thing for Allison, making it even more awkward all around. Stiles doesn't really want to contemplate how that's going to complicate things down the line, but it's going to make keeping this whole thing under wraps a lot more difficult. Especially if they have to explain Allison's absence from school for a prolonged period of time.

"Leave Isaac to me," says Scott after a moment, with a determined little nod.

"You're not telling him," Stiles warns, pointing a finger in his face again.

"I'm not telling him," Scott repeats, calmly. "I promise."

Next to him, Lydia huffs. "They're _werewolves_. Won't they be able to just... sniff it out?" She's looking at Scott now.

Stiles freezes. _Oh crap, will they?_

"Not really," Scott replies, straightening up. "Their scents are basically the same as before," he says, gesturing to Stiles and Allison. "I think they'd have to get up real close and personal with Stiles to notice any difference."

Stiles shakes himself and plasters a wide grin on his face. "And we all know nobody likes to get all up on this, so I'm safe," he says. The sad part is, that is very true. He catches Allison's eye and she gives him a small, sympathetic smile.

"Even if they can... smell something off? I don't think they'll know exactly what it is," says Scott. His brow furrows again. "Well, Cora or Derek might, being born werewolves and all. Which is another reason I think we should just tell him."

Stiles shakes his head, starting to say 'no, no way, don't even think about it' when Lydia speaks again.

"What about his voice?" she asks, gracefully sliding off her stool and gesturing toward him.

"What's wrong with my voice?!" He whips his head to look at her. She just lifts one eyebrow at him and, okay, maybe he was a little high on the scale there, but he was exclaiming. Exclamations are shrill. "I can—" He stops, too high again, clears his throat and starts over. "I sound totally normal," he says, making his voice as deep as it will go.

Lydia rolls her eyes and walks away from him. She doesn't go far, just to the corner of the kitchen near the breakfast nook, and picks up a bunch of Macy's bags that Stiles hadn't noticed earlier.

"Allison and I went shopping this morning," Lydia says, waving her hand over Allison like Vanna White and, Stiles supposes, indicating the clothes she's wearing that they must have bought. So, not borrowed from her dad then. "Allison couldn't very well go walking around in Scott's too short track pants all the time."

"I'm not short!"

"And of course she needed shoes," Lydia goes on, ignoring Scott's protest.

"That's... nice," Stiles says, unable to come up with anything else. It is nice, but he doesn't really care. It's not like it has any effect on hi—

"And we picked up a few things for you, as well," says Lydia, pulling something pale blue, almost pearlescent, out of one of the bags. It dangles from her fingers by its dainty straps, soft cups glinting in the light.

"What the hell is that?" Stiles asks, backing away.

"Lydia, I told you this was a bad idea," he hears Allison mutter.

"If I have to explain bras to you, Stiles," Lydia says, in a vaguely condescending tone, "we're going to have much more work to do than I expected. I had to guess your size, obviously, but I'm never wrong." She smiles, smugly, thrusting the bra toward him. "It will go perfectly under this top with these new skinny jeans." And she draws another two items out of the bag with more flare than Stiles believes is warranted.

"No," he says.

"Here, go try them on." Lydia pushes the clothing into his arms before he can get away. "I got two skirts for you, also, but I figured we'd start with what you're more comfortable with."

"I'm not comfortable with any of this," Stiles states, shoving the clothes back at her, but she doesn't take them.

"Don't be so intractable," Lydia scolds. She starts pulling more things out of the bags and holding them up for Stiles to see. "I found the perfect lip gloss to go with your skin tone, some eyeliner, and these barrettes match everything." She piles it all up in Stiles's hands, forcing him to juggle awkwardly, then turns to study his face. "If you let me style your hair, you'd make such a cute girl, Stiles."

And that's the last straw. He tosses the whole pile, clothing, makeup, accessories and all, onto the countertop, yelling: "I'm not a girl!"

His breathing is heavy in the stunned silence. He looks up to see the others staring at him — Scott looking sympathetic, Allison all wide-eyed, and Lydia with lips pursed and eyes narrowed at him.

"Not that there's anything wrong with being a girl," Stiles clarifies, huffing in a shallow breath. "All the girls I know can kick my ass from here to eternity! I'm just not one. A girl. Okay?" He glances from Lydia to the shopping bags at her feet and all the scattered girl accoutrements, and begins backing out of the kitchen. "And this is not happening. You are not doing this. And since there's no research going on here, I am going home!"

Stiles turns around and marches through the house to the front door. Before he can pull it open he hears Allison call after him, "Don't you want brownies?"

"Yes!" Stiles shouts back, opening the door and pausing in the threshold. "I absolutely want brownies! I will expect to receive brownies at some point in my future!" He huffs angrily before stomping out of the house and shutting the door behind him.

Three seconds after he climbs into his Jeep, Scott comes loping out of the house after him. "Dude, wait up!"

Stiles rolls down his window and points his finger in Scott's face for the third and hopefully final time.

"Fix. This," he says through gritted teeth. Scott just nods back, dumbly. Stiles rolls the window back up and peels out of there.

 

* * *

 

A few hours later, while Stiles is wallowing in dejected self-pity on his bed, there's a soft knock at his door.

"I'm not hungry, Dad!" he calls through the door, but it opens up anyway and it's Allison that pokes her head inside. "Oh, hey," Stiles says, sitting up on his elbows.

She smiles and slips into the room, brandishing a big square Tupperware container. "I brought you brownies. And I snuck them past your dad," she adds with a wink.

"You're my new favorite," he tells her, pushing himself up the bed and patting the spot next to him.

Allison flashes a quick smile at him, and Stiles notices that her dimples are just the same under all that stubble. She walks almost delicately across the carpet, like she's trying not to make a sound, and it hits Stiles that this is the first time she's ever been in his room. This is the first time she's ever been inside his house.

She sits gingerly on the edge of the bed, seemingly unsure of herself for a moment, then opens up the container and offers it to him. Stiles peers inside, fingers wiggling gleefully in the air before choosing and plucking out a thick slab of dark chocolate brownie. He takes a bite and even as his eyes roll back into his head, he can see Allison's pleased, smug smile.

"Oh my god these are soooo gooooood," Stiles moans around a mouthful. Allison looks away from him; probably not a sight she wants burned into her memory.

"My dad's recipe," she says, with a little shrug. "He stress bakes." Stiles eyes her, thinking that's an admission that it runs in the family if he ever heard one.

"Mmmwell," he says, swallowing. "Both of you can use my kitchen anytime!" She flashes those dimples again, ducking her head. Stiles reconsiders. "Maybe just you, though," he says, scrunching his nose at the thought of Chris Argent in his house.

Allison watches him while he finishes his brownie then debates whether or not to have another.

"I told Lydia not to do that," she says after a moment. Stiles's fingers freeze over the container for a second. He picks just a corner off another piece and pops it into his mouth.

"Yeah, I heard you," he says, giving her a small nod that he hopes she interprets as thanks. He doesn't have unspoken communications with Allison, or anyone, like he does with Scott.

"You know," Stiles says, leaning back against his headboard. "Before, I probably would've let her. Having Lydia's attention solely focused on me? That would've been like a dream!" He grins at her, and Allison's eyes sparkle back. "Even if it was just her dressing me up like some kind of life-sized Barbie doll. Hell, I'm secure enough in my manhood to say that I would've had fun with it, too. Except..." He looks down, fingers twisting in his comforter. "Now I'm not."

"You're still yourself, Stiles," Allison says quietly, and he snaps his eyes up to her.

Yeah. Stiles might not look much different, even if he feels all wrong, but Allison isn't so lucky. She's got a five o'clock shadow by noon, and at the end of the day her beard could probably give Derek's a run for its money. Stiles can still pretend, to the rest of the world at least; he can't imagine how Allison is coping.

"Do you think Lydia and I would've become friends sooner if I'd been a girl?" he asks, hoping to lighten the mood.

"Mm…" Allison purses her lips, studying him, then shakes her head. "Mm-mm. Frenemies, maybe. Rivals, definitely."

"Really?" Stiles sits up straighter. He'd never considered that before. He figured he'd have been invisible to her either way.

Allison's mouth curves up at the corners, her eyes alight. She leans forward as though imparting a great secret. "She's completely envious of your eyelashes."

"Yeah?" And he feels his own mouth curving.

"Even before this happened," Allison affirms, leaning back. "And your lips."

"She said that?" In addition to the grin he can't control, his face feels hot, all blushing and bashful.

"You're a cute boy, Stiles, but Lydia was right. You'd be a really pretty girl," Allison says like she's reassuring him, and Stiles isn't really sure how he feels about that. "I'm keeping all the things she bought for you, by the way," Allison adds, digging a small shopping bag out of her coat. "These hairclips? Mine."

Her smile is wide and genuine, and Stiles gives a light chuckle. He catalogues all the changes in her face — jaw just slightly more square and completely obscured by dark beard growth; her eyes look smaller for some reason, and her nose a little larger. She's holding the barrettes up to her head. At least she's still got the hair for it.

"We're gonna fix this," he says suddenly, like a vow.

Allison meets his eyes, gaze steady. "We will," she replies, like a promise.

Stiles chews his lip. "Maybe I'll call out sick tomorrow, too, and we can get a jump on research?"

"My dad has a pretty extensive library. He's already started looking." Her eyes flick away from his, then back. "We won't be able to hide forever."

"Yeah." Stiles sighs, contemplating that for a moment. "Do you think the other werewolves will really be able to—to smell me?" 

Allison pauses, looking around his room. "Oh," she says pointing over to his dresser. "Wear that Axe body spray. That stuff smells so gross it'll cover anything."

"Oh, cool, yeah I can—wait, you think that stuff smells gross?" He pauses halfway off the bed on his way to retrieve it.

She gives him a nearly downright pitying look, rivaling that of one Lydia Martin. "Every girl I know thinks that stuff smells gross."

Stiles, heartbroken, stares at his Axe like it's seriously let him down.

"I'd better get going." Allison stands from the bed and takes a few steps toward the door. "Strangely enough, my dad's been even more worried about me lately."

"Isn't he aware that his daughter can take care of herself?"

"Right? It's like he doesn't know me at all anymore," she says, but then her smile slips and her eyes lose focus, staring unseeingly into the middle distance. She shakes her head, and flashes those dimples at him once more, before disappearing out the door.

 

* * *

 

In the middle of the night, Stiles bolts awake in bed, clutching at his chest. The hammering of his heart thrums through his veins, the sound of blood rushing past his ears, and he feels like he's been running. In the dream, he had been running. Something had been chasing him, something was coming.

At once, he feels the creepy-crawly sensation of someone watching him, a presence in his bedroom, something lurking in the dark, waiting to pounce. Holding his breath, Stiles slowly reaches for his bedside lamp. The click of the switch is the only sound in the room, and the soft, yellow glow illuminates every empty corner.

There's nothing there.

It's a long while before he falls asleep again.

 

* * *

 

In the morning, Stiles takes stock of his appearance, attempting to mentally psych himself up. He's lost about an inch in height ( _several inches_ in another area that he chooses not to think about) and his face is a little softer, rounder, just like the rest of his body, but he can pass. His favorite pair of jeans were too tight on his butt, hips, and thighs, and that was incredibly frustrating just a few minutes ago when he was getting dressed for the day. _For school._

"I can't believe you're making me go to school," he yells down the hall at his father for maybe the eleventh time. He'd tried his damndest to wriggle out of it all night. "I'm going through a traumatic life change here!"

"You can do that at school," his dad replies, placidly, passing by Stiles's door. "Teenagers the world over do it every day."

"Oh, he's a comedian. Puberty is not on par with this!" Stiles hollers back.

He checks himself one last time in the full length mirror on the back of his closet door. His hair is sticking up in all directions, but that was mostly intentional. He can't decide how he likes it, yet. It's been a long time since he's had hair he can actually do things with, so he's still experimenting. But in his tan pants, dark blue t-shirt, and red and green plaid over shirt he looks like himself. He's Stiles, same guy as always.

He grabs a hoodie at the last minute on his way out the door. Just. Because. Then runs back in and blasts himself with another spray of Axe for good measure. Even _he_ is starting to think this stuff stinks.

Stiles stops in the kitchen to grab a quick Pop-Tart shaped breakfast, and make one last plea. "You know, I could be using this time for something more productive."

"School is productive," his dad responds without even looking up, though he does wrinkle his nose a bit behind his paper. "This is temporary, remember? Your permanent record is permanent."

"That's not even true. Colleges barely look at attendance records," Stiles whines. He knows he's whining, but he doesn't want to say that this will only be temporary if they can figure out how to reverse it. Saying that out loud is like admitting defeat. He refuses. This is absolutely temporary. This will be fixed. They will meet after school, figure everything out, have a laugh, go to the Winchester, and wait for all this to blow over. Or something.

He doesn't realize his dad has moved until he's standing right in front of him, looking him in the eye.

"It's gonna be fine, kid," he says, both hands clapped onto Stiles's shoulders. "You're still you. You can handle this."

Stiles sucks in a deep breath and nods. "Yeah. I got this."

"You got this," his dad agrees, giving him an encouraging smile.

"I _got _this!" Stiles repeats, pumping his fist in the air.__

Dad slaps him on the back. "Get to school."

He remains confident on the entire drive, as he's pulling into the parking lot, and even while making his way up the steps to the main doors. It's when he's winding his way through the crowded halls to his locker that his self-assurance starts to fail him. Stiles has always been an awkward person; he's aware of this, truly. Gangly, unwieldy limbs; inability to keep his mouth shut and therefore avoid negative attention; and that growth spurt in ninth grade had been ridiculous. Nevertheless, he's always careened through life, knocking into things without paying attention, focused on his destination and blinded to the obstacles in his path.

Given his awareness of his gangly arms, too long legs, and wiry ( _not_ skinny) physique, Stiles has never actually been quite this self-conscious about his own body before. He finds himself dodging and weaving, contorting his body into twisty shapes just to avoid contact with his fellow students. He hunches his shoulders forward, agonizingly aware of his chest and the subtle, new heaviness there. He hikes his backpack up higher, clutching at the straps and drawing his elbows in close to his sides. He's really glad he threw on that extra hoodie this morning.

Scott's waiting for him by their lockers, but Stiles also glimpses Isaac standing with him. Stiles hangs back, slowing his pace and pretending to read the bulletin board on the wall, glancing over a couple times. There's a small crease between Scott's eyebrows when he sees Stiles, but he seems to understand quickly enough. Scott says a few words to Isaac, pats his shoulder, then Isaac turns and leaves.

When Stiles makes his way over, he hopes his relief shows enough on his face that Scott knows he's grateful, but not enough that he'll have to acknowledge it.

"Hey, man," Scott says, completely letting it slide because he's sometimes the best, holding his hand out in greeting.

"'Sup." Stiles slaps Scott's hand and they start to go in for their bro hug, the one they'd invented in middle school, but Stiles pulls back at the last second, shying away from Scott bumping his chest and tucking his elbows in close to his body again. Scott blinks at him, confused, but blessedly doesn't comment on it.

"Allison said we could meet at her place after school today," Scott says instead. "Her dad won't be there," he adds at the face Stiles is sure he's making.

"Okay, cool." Stiles swaps his books between his backpack and locker. "Oh, yeah, there's a new deputy at the station. Parrish," he says, just remembering. "He _requested_ a placement here."

"Okay. So?"

"So? I don't know. He showed up after we did the thing. Could be fishy. Like, were-fishy, right? A supernatural beacon-type fishy?"

"Does he seem… fishy?" asks Scott, forehead wrinkling.

Stiles licks his lips, looking away for a moment. "Not really. He seems pretty cool actually, but then so have, uh, other people in the past. I only talked to him for a bit when my dad introduced him last week. You know, before all _this_ happened. I meant to bring it up then but." He shrugs. "Something to keep in mind, at least."

Scott nods in agreement, shouldering his own backpack, and they both head to class just like it's any other school day. In fact, the whole day goes by like normal and it isn't until Stiles is back in his Jeep that he feels the tension in his muscles and has to force himself to relax. He'd been so busy preparing himself for the worst, some comment, some joke, that he can't even remember what assignments he might have and only vaguely recalls that they have a new World History teacher. He'd spent the whole day on edge, just waiting for someone to say something, and nobody ever did.

It's an odd realization, expecting the worst and getting nothing; it's an uneven mix of relief and dread. He doesn't share any classes with the resident werewolves this semester, except for Scott, so keeping his distance wasn't too difficult. Not like they seek out his company anyway. It could still happen, if he's stuck like this for long, but not a single person noticed anything different about him. Not a single person noticed him at all. Just like every other day.

The rest of the week goes pretty much the same, and not a one of them gets anywhere on finding a solution.

 

* * *

 

The weekend finds Stiles doing his usual grocery run while his dad is at work. He would've much rather stayed home; not that he's _hiding_ or anything, but spell books won't read themselves! Unless there's a spell for that...

No. No more spells. And no more of this argument, either. Stiles is only half listening to Scott with his phone cradled between his ear and his shoulder. He's busy counting items in his cart and checking them off his grocery list. If he doesn't make a list and stick to it, it's an impulse shopper's nightmare. He tunes back in when he hears the name again and Scott's oft-repeated refrain.

"Scott," Stiles snaps into his phone, jerking his shopping cart out of the center of the aisle. "You promised you'd keep your big mouth shut!"

" _My_ big mouth?" says Scott in his ear.

"No Deaton! We agreed," he cuts Scott off, hissing into his phone. "And we're definitely not telling _him_ , either!" Normally Stiles hates when people conduct loud personal phone calls in public (Cell phones don't create a cone of silence and, yes, everyone in the vicinity can one-hundred percent hear you!), but he's in a hurry to get out of there. He purposefully went all the way to the SuperMart across town instead of the small grocer's right by his house, so there's not a _large_ possibility that he could run into somebody he knows—

"Stiles?"

He jerks his head up at the sound of his name; his phone slides off his shoulder and into his shopping cart, landing on a bag of frozen green beans. He hears, tinny and far away, Scott's voice: _"…is that Derek?"_

Stiles scrabbles for the phone, saying, "I gotta go, Scott," before ending the call. He turns slowly to face Derek, then wishes he'd pretended he hadn't heard him and just kept walking.

"Stiles," Derek says again, coming up the aisle toward him. "I wasn't sure that was…" His nostrils flare, a tiny frown of confusion forming between his eyebrows, and Stiles hopes to hell his Axe hasn't worn off. He thinks he's becoming desensitized to it.

"'Sup, dude," Stiles says, giving a little wave with the hand holding his phone. "Hey, how's it going. Love to chat, but, uh, I'm kind of in a hurry, you know, gotta get this stuff home before it, uh, melts…" He starts to turn his cart around to head up to the registers, even though he hasn't gotten everything on his list, but Derek's blocking the way.

"What aren't you telling who?" Derek asks, then quickly shakes his head like he maybe didn't mean to say that. Instead he says, "Erica told me Allison Argent hasn't been in school all week. Isaac said he hasn't seen her, either."

It's funny, the words aren't un-Derek-like, but the tone is. A year ago, it would've been accusatory, suspicious, fishing for information. But here it sounds like Derek is asking because he's actually... concerned? He _could_ be worrying the Argents are up to something — that wouldn't be unusual or even out of line, and Stiles wouldn't find fault with Derek asking, either — but his tone and the expression on his face don't line up with that.

Stiles blinks at him, and finally manages an answer. "Oh yeah, no, I think she's just... uuhhh, come down with something?"

"Something you don't want to tell Deaton about?" Derek asks, one eyebrow raised, and there's the old paranoid werewolf they all know and lo—

"Hah! Haha, no, no, that's—" Stiles coughs and forces his voice into a deeper register. "That's totally something else. I mean, nothing. It's completely a million percent nothing. Not important."

Derek's eyes flick all-too-briefly down from Stiles's face to the Grumpy Cat image on the front of his t-shirt. "Whatever it is," Derek says, "just tell me it's not going to kill us? Me or the pack."

"It's not," Stiles replies immediately. "I mean because there's nothing! There's absolutely no thing. Not a thing to worry about."

Derek's eyes linger on his t-shirt again, perhaps marveling at the remarkable resemblance between the image and himself. Then suddenly Stiles wonders if he's actually looking at Stiles's lying, traitorous heart, or because he can see the way the fabric clings around the soft swell and curves of his chest.

Stiles wraps his arms around himself, blocking his body from Derek's view.

_Maybe Lydia had a point?_

"Well, anyway," Stiles says, faking a light laugh. "Since there's nothing to, uh, to talk about, I should…" He gestures vaguely while keeping his arms firmly crossed. He notices the shopping basket hanging from Derek's arm, filled with regular things like toothpaste and shaving cream. When does Derek ever shave? Stiles is pretty sure the skin on the lower half of his face hasn't seen the light of day in months. And then Stiles's eyes travel downward of their own accord. Does he shave _other_ things?

"Are you all right?" Derek's voice breaks into his thoughts.

"What? Me?" Stiles squeaks, voice too high again. "Me fine. _I'm_ fine. Fine, fine, totally fine. I gotta go!" Stiles whips his cart around Derek, nearly crashing into a cookie display. "Bye!" he calls over his shoulder as he flees down the center aisle, an image of Derek with nothing but shaving cream covering strategic portions of his body seared into his brain.

Shaving cream — there's one thing Stiles won't need to worry about buying. For the time being, anyway. Temporarily. But his dad might run out soon, so maybe he should just go get some anyway, Stiles thinks as he zigzags through the home goods and clothing sections of the SuperMart toward the personal hygiene.

Derek shouldn't shave, though. He shouldn't shave _anything_.

Stiles feels his face warm and heat pooling in the groin area and—whoa, okay. So this is what a girl-boner feels like. Awesome. Really fantastic. Stiles squirms while he walks. How are girls so good at hiding their reactions? He just prays that werewolves can't smell arousal across a crowded super store.

He should definitely pick up more Axe body spray.

Shaking his head at himself, he nearly sideswipes a clothing rack filled with lacy ladies' underwear and bras. The _'Intimates'_ department, of course, is right next to the personal hygiene. One particularly stubborn white frilly thing hooks itself onto the end of his cart. Stiles flicks at it, trying to dislodge it as quickly as possible without causing a scene, but his cart remains ensnared. After a few more fruitless flicks, Stiles comes around the cart to carefully untangle the lacy strap. He plans to toss the garment back at its rack as soon as it's free, but finds himself holding it up and inspecting it more closely.

The thing looks so uncomfortable. And ineffectual. And not like it could in any way be considered practical or functional.

A movement nearby catches his eye. He looks up to see a sales lady watching him, her eyes narrowing on the bra in his hands. Stiles feels immobile in the wake of her judging stare.

Very deliberately, he places the bra gently back on the rack, puts both hands on his cart, and turns away.

With his face burning and his breathing going erratic, he slows his hurried pace and silently tells himself to breathe. He wasn't doing anything and has no reason to feel so humiliated. What right does she have to glare at him like he's some kind of perv?

Though maybe she wasn't. Maybe she just thought he was a really butch girl.

Who's he kidding, he's not that butch.

Stiles collects the rest of his items, not even bothering to hunt for the best deals, and skedaddles out of there before anything else can happen.

It's not until later, when he's putting things away, stashing the shaving cream and razors in his dad's bathroom, that he thinks it odd how Derek had called it _'the'_ pack and not _'my'_ pack.

 

* * *

 

Stiles is nothing if not good at finding things on the internet. It took him a few days to work up the nerve to look, but damn if he's not great at finding exactly what he needs when he makes up his mind.

That, and multi-tasking.

He minimizes his search window when Lydia's impatient voice rings out of his laptop. "Are you listening to me, Stiles?"

"Yeah, yeah. I was just checking those links you sent." He brings up the other window with the stuff Lydia sent him. "How is some dude in Hong Kong supposed to help us? What about that other book we borrowed from Deaton?"

Lydia's eyebrow rises to a point, the _'Borrowed?'_ clear enough as if it had been spoken aloud. Stiles ignores that.

"Can't you finish translating that first?" he asks.

"There's nothing left to translate, Stiles. This isn't—" She stops, only the top of her head visible on his screen, swishing hair a brighter red in the lamplight of her bedroom. She's shaking her head and not looking at him. If Lydia's at a loss for words...

There's a quick _knock, knock_ on his half-closed bedroom door, and a deep voice inquiring, "Stiles?" just a second before a dark head of hair and a face with a full beard peeks into the room.

Stiles blinks and double-takes. It's not the person he'd first thought it was.

"Allison. Come on in," he says, waving her into the room. She walks in, still a bit tentative like the last time she was here, but sits right down on the end of his bed without hesitation.

"I just stopped by to pick up the container I left last time?" she says, like a question. "Also I brought cookies. They're downstairs in the kitchen." She squints past Stiles at his laptop, then gives a tiny wave. "Oh, hey, Lydia."

"Allison?" Lydia asks, leaning closer to the camera as though she can peer more fully into his bedroom that way. "I thought you went home."

"I did, but my dad was still out so." She shrugs, and looks away out Stiles's bedroom window.

"How is his search coming?" asks Lydia, emphasizing 'his' to juxtapose against hers. Or theirs, Stiles supposes.

"There's really nothing in our library," Allison says, and Stiles can hear the frustration and disappointment mirroring his own. "Dad's reaching out to some contacts he knows," she continues, faltering at that. She shakes her head and glances away again briefly. "But, you know, it's difficult when not giving specifics."

And they can't give specifics, can they? Not really, not if they want to keep this secret. Not if they expect any hunter associates to actually help them.

Once again, Allison has her hair pulled back at the nape of her neck. Without noticing the ponytail, at a glance it looks like her hair is short, closely cropped to her head, maybe slicked back with some gel. Stiles thinks she'd be extra super hot if she cut her hair off. It's dark, and soft-looking, and with the beard she really looks like—

"Okay!" Stiles says suddenly and loudly. "It's been almost two weeks and we're no closer to finding anything? Nothing at all?"

"Perhaps it's time we consider Scott's suggestion?" Lydia says calmly.

"No!"

"Stiles," Allison sighs, but doesn't follow it up with anything.

"This whole thing is his fault in the first place," Stiles complains. Whether he means Deaton or Scott is open to interpretation.

Allison gets up and moves over to the desk. She leans across Stiles to get a closer look at his laptop, her arm stretched in front of him. "What have you found so far?" she asks, clicking onto his search window.

Too late, Stiles realizes she's bringing up the wrong one. "No, wait—"

"What's thi—oh." She blinks at the screen, and at Stiles. "Oh."

"What?" asks Lydia, leaning forward again. "You got something?"

"No," Allison replies, too quickly, but she schools her expression just as fast. "No, it's not—I thought it was something else." She flashes a smile at Lydia then and minimizes the search window again.

"Oh. Well," Lydia dismisses. "In the meantime, we're going to have to come up with a more permanent explanation for Allison's absence. She can't be out sick forever."

"I can't believe I let you decide on mono," Allison complains.

"It's contagious enough to keep people away from you for at least a month," Lydia explains again, clearly over this argument. "But it won't work much longer than that."

"But really," Stiles interjects desperately, "this isn't going to last longer than that, right? Right?"

"It's already not working in some quarters," Allison says, as though Stiles hadn't even spoken. "Isaac keeps trying to come over." Her eyes flick guiltily to Stiles then down at the floor. "We've been texting a little lately. I told him I'm fine, feeling ill but not to worry. That I'm still contagious and can't see him right now, but he said he couldn't catch anything, and he knows Scott's been to see me. He knows because he could... smell it on Scott when he got home. Smell me on Scott."

"Werewolves have no concept of privacy," Stiles quips and shakes his head, resigned to being ignored.

"See?" Lydia arches a smug eyebrow at Allison, totally ignoring Stiles like he knew she would. "This is why we need a better plan, or to just tell them."

"Okay," Stiles butts in, physically pushing his face in front of the webcam and reasserting his presence. "We'll think of a better excuse later, but right now we focus on a solution," he says resolutely.

"Fine." Lydia lasers her gimlet gaze at him. "Now if you don't mind, Cantonese is an exceptionally tricky language to learn," she snaps and signs off.

Stiles closes out his chat window, and leaves his finger hovering over his search window without clicking on it. He can feel Allison's eyes at his back, hears her sit back down on his bed.

"I remember when I was thirteen and wished mine were bigger," Allison says into the stifling tension.

Stiles turns around to face her, his eyes dropping down to her chest, but of course, her breasts aren't there right now. She's broad and flat and probably very firm. He's never been more envious of another dude's body. Except for Derek's, but he's sure now that that was an admiration stemming from something else that he's not prepared to examine in his present state.

"But of course," Allison continues, "I did gymnastics so I always wore a sports binder. A compressive bra. All the girls did. Those aren't quite the same thing as what you're looking at, but you still have to be careful of your comfort. Don't get anything too tight just to make yourself flatter."

"I, uh..." Stiles stutters, stunned for a minute. "Um, yeah, I found this, um, this website that explains all the, uh, do's and don'ts, if you will."

Allison nods. "That's good." Her smile dims and her eyes dart away. "At least you can..."

"Yeah," Stiles replies, faintly, because what could he even say to that? Allison can't just hide her man-parts and pretend she's herself again. Although...

He spins around back to the computer to open a new search tab, but hears a sudden flurry of movement behind him and Allison bursts to her feet.

"I mean, how do you walk around all day with that thing just hanging there?" she demands, in a loud, booming voice. "Doing whatever the fuck it wants?!"

Mouth hanging open, Stiles just stares at her for a moment. He can't fight the grin tugging up the corners of his lips. Not even when she focuses a laser-glare on him.

"You totally got your first hard-on, didn't you?" he asks, a little chuckle escaping.

"And second. And third! And—" She cuts off, clearly not wanting to list them all. "IT WAS SO WEIRD!" she shouts, arms flapping at her sides. She drops back down onto the bed with a huff.

"Hey, been there," he says, with a wave at his own new body and his eyebrows raised high.

"Oh?" One of her eyebrows lifts with curiosity.

"Heh, yeah," he says, with a huffy little laugh. "Interesting differences, definitely."

"Very," Allison replies, slowly. "I mean, it wasn't bad, just..." She shifts on the bed. "Inconvenient. And I'm not even sure what caused it?"

"Yeah, that sounds about right," says Stiles, with a full out laugh this time. He lets his head fall back, staring up at the ceiling, and swivels his chair side-to-side. "Man, I miss my dick. We had some good times."

"Stiles!"

He looks over at her scandalized face, blush and dimples still visible beneath the ever-growing beard. "What? Am I not supposed to talk like this in front of _girls_?" he asks, smirking. She just shakes her head at him.

He remembers the days when it was all new, not to mention the severely embarrassing talks with his dad. He wonders if Allison's dad has thought to talk to her about this. He's guessing probably neither of them wants to bring it up. Rolling his eyes at what he's about to do, Stiles leans forward with his elbows on his knees. But Allison beats him to the punch.

"You know," she says, not quite looking directly at him. "You can still have good times. By yourself. It's just different."

"Allison Argent!" he fake gasps, but he's only half-mocking her because honestly? He finds the whole prospect daunting.

"Oh surely you've thought about it," she says, daring to make eye contact now that she's not the one under the microscope.

"Well, y-yeah," he stumbles, turning away from her sharp gaze. He's watched tons of porn, obviously. And he's not ashamed to admit that he's researched how to pleasure a woman. But a lot of that involves using his tongue and it's not like he can get his own tongue down there… Huh, he wonders if girls ever try that. Not that he did when he had a dick, because that would be weird probably. He shakes that off, half-turns back to her, and admits, "I'm kind of afraid to even go down there. I mean, every time I have to go pee is... an adventure."

She opens her mouth to speak, but seems to visibly change her mind, the words morphing into: "Tell me about it."

It must be just as weird for her, Stiles thinks. He honestly can't decide which is weirder: having something suddenly missing, or having a new thing suddenly... attached.

"Anyway." Stiles leans back in his chair again, adopting a casual sprawl. "I was going to say there are ways to take care of that, uh, situation."

"Stiles," Allison says, dropping her chin and giving him such a look. "I think I know what to do with an erect penis."

Stiles chokes, half amusement and half surprise. "Oh believe me, I've heard all abaahh—nothing," he sputters, shaking his head at her widened eyes and hardened expression. "I've heard nothing. About you. And penises. Ever."

She crosses her arms over her chest, eyes narrowing. Beneath that piercing gaze, he can see her cheeks reddening. Out of anger or embarrassment, probably both, but Stiles isn't going to ask. He clears his throat, and tries again.

"I was actually going to say that there are ways to, uh, keep that under control. Management to keep surprises from… popping up? At inconvenient times or places." Her face is definitely more embarrassment than anger now. Stiles can't resist, leaning sideways in his chair and smirking. "So, did you...?" he asks, making a jacking off motion, and Allison blushes even further, ducking her head. If her hair wasn't pulled back, she'd be hiding behind a curtain of it.

"Not—" she starts to say, peeking back up at him under her eyelashes. "Not the first time," she says, coyly. She's biting her lower lip, stretching wide into a grin, and they both just dissolve into giggles. Allison flops back onto his bed, both hands covering her face to muffle the laughter.

"So," Stiles says a moment later, and waits for her to finally uncover her face and look at him. "You wanna help me pick out a thing to hide my boobs?"

She sits up, wiping tears from her eyes, smile wide. "Okay."

 

* * *

 

Allison becomes a more frequent visitor to the Stilinski house. She's still avoiding Isaac, so it's not like she can just go to Scott's house whenever she wants to see him, what with Isaac living there and all. So most days Allison drops by as soon as Stiles gets home from school, or she hangs out on the weekends to use his kitchen just like he'd offered. The downside to that is that his dad insists on getting to at least sample all of her delicious baked goods. Brownies and cookies were just the tip of the Argent Family Recipes icing-berg.

Stiles has never really hung out with Allison before, just the two of them on their own. Is it weird that it's _less_ weird now that she's kind of a dude?

Not that Stiles thinks of her as a guy. He doesn't, no more than he could think of himself as a girl. She's still Allison. It's just that Scott was always this sort of buffer between them. It was never 'my friend Allison,' and always 'my friend's girlfriend Allison.' And on some occasions: 'Allison, the girl who might be trying to kill some people I know who might or might not be my friends.'

Stiles realizes that all the relationships of the people around him are complicated, but now he and Allison share this thing. None of the others — not the ones who know, nor the ones being kept in the dark — are part of it. It's overwhelming and lonely, and there's nobody else he can really talk to about it. Not even Scott.

"They don't get it," Allison says to him after another fruitless afternoon at Lydia's.

Stiles is driving, so he doesn't look over at her. He doesn't feel like he needs to respond anyway; he'd made it pretty clear that he knows they don't get it. He shouldn't have blown up at Lydia, and he'll apologize to her tomorrow. Or maybe tonight after he gets home and calms down a little. But they _really_ don't get it.

"It doesn't mean that they aren't trying, or think it isn't important," Allison goes on, but she sounds more like she's trying to convince herself. "I used to think about this sometimes, you know?"

Stiles glances sideways at her then. "Being magically turned into a dude?"

"Just being male in general," she says, stuffing her hands into her coat pockets, then taking them out again. "Like, I'd have to put up with so much less shit. And that whole peeing standing up thing — which is not as great as I thought it would be. I mean, can you even go hands-free? I guess it makes camping easier, but who actually goes camping for fun?"

"Mm, my dad's more of a fishing guy," says Stiles, nodding. "And we all know how I feel about the great outdoors."

She smiles over at him, before her mouth turns down again. "My arms are stronger now, but I can't run as fast. And I can still hold a bow well; it hasn't affected my shooting." She sighs, looking down at her hands now as she holds them out in front of her, turning them this way and that like she's inspecting them for dirt. Or trying to figure out how they're attached to her. "I just thought it would be kind of fun, you know? Seeing what it's like." 

"But." Stiles says it short and sharp, not a question.

"But," Allison agrees. "So, they don't get it, and I think maybe that's why. Lydia... Lydia _would_ have fun with it, you know? I think she'd more than adapt."

"She'd own it," Stiles says.

"Exactly. She'd take it and she would enjoy the hell out of it. And so she doesn't understand why we aren't." Allison sighs again, more of a deep inhale and short release this time. "And Scott? I think to Scott it's just so unfathomable and he's better able to pretend there's nothing different about us."

"Scott's good at that, yeah."

"But there is," she protests, and for the first time there's more than anger or frustration in her voice. It's unsteady, gravelly and hoarse like she's been screaming or crying. "I don't feel... right. It's not fun and I want to go back."

Stiles pretends he doesn't hear the occasional sniffle from the passenger seat, and that he can't see Allison wiping at her eyes with the edge of her sleeve. He drops her off out front of her building and she asks if he wants to come in, though they both know what his answer will be.

"Nah," Stiles says, but to soften it he follows it up with, "I'm gonna swing by the station and see my dad. I'll see you tomorrow, though." Before she can close the door, he calls out, "Hey, Allison! Scott still loves you, you know? But if you ever decide to take him back, you better make him beg like a dog."

A laugh bursts from her, and her watery eyes shimmer. "Deal."

He waits until she's safely inside before pulling away.

The last thing Stiles is expecting when he's making his way into the Sheriff's station is to run into Derek coming out the front doors.

"Oh crap now who's trying to kill you?" slips out of Stiles's mouth before he has time to even think about it.

Derek rolls his eyes as he steps out of the doorway. "The sheriff is helping me secure building permits through the proper channels. I'm renovating the loft."

"Didn't know you could properly renovate a place you're squatting in," says Stiles, also stepping away from the door and closer to Derek. Just so they're both off to the side and not blocking anybody's pathway.

"It's not squatting if you own the building," replies Derek. "I'm turning the whole place into luxury condos. And after they sell, I was thinking about buying the one across the street from it and doing the same."

Stiles stands there with his mouth hanging open for a probably inappropriate amount of time.

"I have a degree in business and _was_ working toward a Masters in urban planning and historic preservation," Derek says, sounding annoyed and more like the Derek that Stiles is used to.

"Who's gonna buy a condo in that industrial wasteland?" is what Stiles finally says.

"Well, the people who've already invested in it, probably," Derek quips back. "Plus, it's only two blocks from what passes for Beacon Hills' nightlife."

"Nightlife. We have, like, three bars, two fancy restaurants, and a dance club."

Derek sighs again, his big shoulders heaving. "There are two night clubs," he corrects. "Also, a couple of coffee houses, a giant book store, an entire street full of boutique shops, and a new sushi place just opened. The neighborhood is really turning around."

Stiles makes a crack about Derek selling out, but Derek just shrugs. "There's good money in it," he says with a wink, and Stiles laughs. "Taking pride in where you come from isn't selling out," Derek adds, more seriously. "This town used to be vibrant. Thriving. If I can help to get it back there…" He shrugs again, and Stiles doesn't know what to say to that.

"You keep telling yourself that, big guy," he jokes in place of a real response, "but we both know you're in it for the money."

Derek makes like he's gonna punch Stiles in the arm, but he pulls it back at the last second. Stiles stumbles anyway, limbs flailing, until he gets himself under control. Derek's laughing. A wide, bright, happy smile on his face. Derek is remembering the rose-tinted Beacon Hills of his childhood. If he's trying to make it that way again, it must mean he plans on sticking around.

They're still smiling, both of them. At each other. Stiles starts to shift his weight from foot to foot, hoping his new binder is doing its job and the Axe body spray is stinky enough to cover everything. He starts to make an excuse and head inside when Derek hedges closer.

"Have you—" Derek furtively glances around and that's not suspicious or alarming at all. He lowers his voice. "V'you noticed anything weird about the new deputy?"

"Parrish?" Stiles asks, though he is the only brand new deputy, and Stiles _had_ had his own suspicions about him. "Like were-weird? Do you think he's evil? Oh my god, are you attracted to him?" he blurts and Derek's face goes blank. "What? That's a good indicator," Stiles defends, but puts his hands up in surrender. "Fine, sorry, sorry; that was uncalled for." He bites his lip, then adds, "Not inaccurate, though."

Though his expression _looks_ impassive, Derek still seems to be glaring angrily. It's all in the eyebrows.

Stiles shrugs, scratching the back of his head. Maybe he should cut his hair again. Eventually he says, "I don't know. I mean, maybe, kind of? I think there's a possibility, yes. I'm, uh, I'm keeping an eye on the situation, but, you know, I've got other stuff to worry about right now."

"Yeah," Derek says, like he knows all about Stiles's worries. "Are you ever going to tell me what it is you're hiding?"

Automatically, Stiles's arms wrap themselves around his chest. He drops them immediately and shifts his weight into a more casual stance. "Well, obviously if I was hiding something — which I'm not! But if I were, I wouldn't go around telling people, now would I? That is the opposite of hiding things, Derek."

Derek nods like he didn't expect an answer. "And Allison? Is she still... under the weather?" And the way he says it tells Stiles that he doesn't believe their cover story for a second.

"I'm not her keeper. Why don't you ask Scott?" Stiles says, then quickly backtracks because that is a terrible idea. "I mean, no, don't ask Scott. Scott doesn't know, either. They aren't together anymore." Scott is also the worst liar ever, Derek will see right through him in seconds, and Scott's been wanting to tell him anyway. That can't happen.

Derek is watching him speculatively, and Stiles really, really hopes his stupid Axe also covers any smells he may have acquired via proximity otherwise Derek must be able to smell Allison on him, like, stronger than ever before in the past.

"I gotta go! See—" Stiles jerks a thumb over his shoulder. "My dad. So. Bye!" He turns and flees into the station, leaving Derek standing alone on the walkway.

 

* * *

 

His dad is actually the best. He's taken this whole thing in stride, like way better than he took the _'Hey so werewolves (and other supernatural creatures) totally exist!'_ bomb. He refuses to dish about helping out one Derek Hale, however.

"I'm not a gossipy old woman, Stiles. I don't 'dish.'"

"That was so very sexist, Dad."

"It was not. If anything, it was ageist."

Stiles snorts a laugh at him and benevolently lets the subject drop. Derek's words come back to him later, though, when he's out around town. There are several new businesses along the main drag, what looks like a construction crew doing actual construction on the once-abandoned shopping mall, and while driving home from school he notices no fewer than three U-HAUL trucks at three separate houses. _Un _loading furniture and boxes. There's also a new person behind the desk at the public library, a woman that Stiles has never seen around town before.__

All of that wouldn't—shouldn't add up to anything, really. It's a small county, but it's not like everybody knows absolutely everybody else on sight. Except, every now and then Stiles gets that tingling sensation of eyes on him, of something just out of his peripheral vision, of something just behind him reaching out to touch. But when he looks up or turns around, there's never anything there.

 

* * *

 

School is eerily the same drudgery as always. He goes, he fights to stay awake in class, nobody ever says much to him. If anyone has noticed that Stiles is a little quieter than he used to be, they don't mention it.

Life continues to tick on by, they all continue to research and find nothing, and Allison quietly turns eighteen. She doesn't have a party, or seem to want to acknowledge the occasion in any way. She hides in Stiles's kitchen baking something that is definitely not a birthday cake.

They take that something — "Popovers!" — to Lydia's for one of their research meetings. Lydia declines to try one when Allison offers. "I'm guessing there's at least a pound of butter in those, so no thank you." She makes a disgusted face when Stiles takes the one she was offered and stuffs it into his own mouth.

They're still coming up with bupkis, and the one month mark has come and gone. Lydia brings up the necessity for discussing a long-term plan again.

"I've been taking online courses," Allison says without looking up, busily rearranging her utensils on Lydia's kitchen table. "My dad got that set up a while ago, and this way I'll be able to finish as myself and maybe even graduate early. Well, earlier than if I stayed at this school. Or got dragged to another one."

Lydia's eyes narrow at 'early graduation' and Scott says, "How come you didn't say anything sooner?"

Allison shrugs. "I thought maybe I wouldn't have to. That this would be resolved. But this might be better. Finishing school this way, I mean. Not... not this." She gestures down at herself.

"Well, that's your education sorted until college at least," says Lydia glibly. "But what about when people start asking where you are? And who... _you_ are?" Lydia gestures at Allison in the same manner.

"So far, my dad's just been saying I'm a cousin from out of town," Allison tells them. She finally sets her fork down and leaves it. "But you're right. We'll have to explain where I've—where Allison has gone, and I can't stay cooped up all the time. This cousin is going to need a better back story."

Lydia's smile sharpens. "How's your French these days, Allison?"

"Passable. I've been getting out of practice lately, why?"

It's decided that Allison — the female Allison everyone expects — has been sent to France as an exchange student, and her cousin has come to live here in her place.

"She needs a name," Stiles points out. "We can't keep calling her 'Allison' in public."

"How about 'Al' when we're around other people?" suggests Scott. "We could say it's short for some French name."

Allison's making a scrunchy face at him, so Stiles says, "How about Alex? It's close enough that we won't slip up, but um, doesn't sound like some old fat guy."

"Mal," Allison says suddenly.

"Like Malcolm? Captain Malcolm Reynolds?" Stiles asks with a smirk.

"Like, Allison, but male. I'm a man Allison," she explains, then she and Stiles both say, "A Mallison," in unison, and grin at one another.

Lydia sighs deeply. "You two have been spending too much time together."

Scott glances between them, brow furrowed, crooked jaw more pronounced in his consternation.

"Well, that's that settled," Lydia says then, "but what about the Nemeton?" They all look at her curiously. "We haven't discussed that since—" She gestures at Stiles and Allison. "Because we've been focused on this."

"What about the Nemeton?" asks Scott.

"Well, wasn't that what this was all about in the first place?" Lydia says, exasperation coloring her voice.

"We were really just trying to rid them of the nightmares," Scott explains feebly.

"And how are those?" Lydia asks, looking first to Allison then Stiles. They glance at each other, and Allison answers.

"About the same, really." She shrugs one shoulder. "Nothing very specific. But persistent," she adds very quietly.

"Yeah," Stiles agrees. "I'm not sleeping well, but it's kind of just like anxiety. I mean, I can't—I can't always tell if it's just my regular, you know, panic. Or… or something else." Scott gives him a soft-eyed look then and Stiles turns away from him.

"What do we do about the beacon?" Lydia asks. "It's still there, it's still active."

"Is it, though?" Scott asks, focusing back on her. "Nothing's happened."

"Can't you feel it?" she asks, her eyes round and, Stiles thinks, scared. "I feel it," she whispers, hand going to her chest, "here. Like a pull." She blinks, the lost look in her eyes vanishing, and shrugs. "Couldn't tell you what it means..."

Stiles doesn't feel a 'pull' as Lydia calls it; he feels like there's something after him, there's something coming for them.

That reminds Stiles to bring up Parrish, and his own suspicions. He conveniently forgets to mention that Derek had asked him about the new deputy recently, as well. Scott decides that they'll all keep an eye out for anything weird, and Lydia will let them know if she _feels_ anything else, before they pack it in for the night.

Allison stays over at Lydia's to finish out her birthday watching movies and doing whatever it is girls do at sleepovers. Stiles imagines them having a pillow fight, but he can only picture Allison's strong muscular arms knocking Lydia into a wall.

As he's about to climb into his Jeep, Scott catches his arm to stop him. Stiles glances back and sees Scott's constipated face. "What?"

"Stiles," Scott says, starting out strong but wobbling toward the end there and, oh no. Now his face looks like he's going to cry. "I'm really sorry."

"Dude." Stiles hangs there, suspended in time with Scott's hand still on his arm. "I know. I know you're trying."

"But it's my responsibility. This is _all_ my responsibility, and I don't know what to do. I don't know how to help you. Both of you." Now there are actual tears standing in the corners of his eyes. "I should be able to help you."

It's unfair, is what it is. Nobody could hold up in the face of Scott McCall Tears. Stiles finally relents and allows Scott to tell Deaton.

 

* * *

 

"I can't say I've ever encountered a situation such as this before," is what Deaton says to him and Scott, standing together in the back exam room of the animal clinic.

Stiles parses his words as carefully and in as many ways as possible and decides they don't mean that Deaton actually _hasn't_ encountered this before, just that he, for whatever his crazy reasons are, can't talk about it. It does not instill confidence or trust.

While Scott looks much more hopeful now that they've unburdened themselves to, what he clearly considers, a more capable adult person who can fix things, Stiles remains unconvinced that Deaton will be much help. He does ask about the nightmares, though, and Stiles repeats what Allison had said: non-specific, pervasive, overwhelming sense of fear leading to an inability to sleep very well. Same as before they tried the ritual.

That night, however, Stiles's nightmares do take on a specific shape. He dreams of being trapped in a basement again, tied down and helpless. The ropes binding his arms transform into gnarled vines and the basement becomes the root cellar. He sees his dad against the opposite earthen wall, tied down and gagged, too. Between them lies a body, face down, in a pool of blood, and Stiles only realizes that the dark head of matted hair belongs to Derek just seconds before the ceiling collapses and dirt comes pouring in, burying them all.

Stiles wakes up clawing at his chest, taking huge gulps of air. Once he's able to breathe normally and has calmed his heart to a gallop instead of a sprint, he creeps out of bed and down the hall. His dad's bedroom door is open, just like always, and he's asleep in bed exactly as he should be. Stiles watches the even rise and fall of his chest for a long time, a hypnotizing lull.

He doesn't know what Allison dreams, it's one of the things they don't talk about, but he knows whatever it is it's just as bad.

 

* * *

 

As if his life weren't shitty enough, there's a big Valentine's Day dance coming up and he can't take three steps anywhere in the school without smacking into one of the stupid posters or strings of paper hearts.

Before all this happened he'd thought maybe he might ask Lydia to go with him — as friends, his hopes of ever actually dating Lydia Martin are long gone. Well, recently gone. Changed, really. She'll always have a special place in his heart, he thinks, but his infatuation has given way, or evolved maybe, as he's gotten to know her as a real person. In all of his adolescent daydreams (and nighttime fantasies, to be honest) he'd never imagined them as friends. Real, true friends, the kind that talk about test anxiety (mostly Stiles) and divorced parent issues (Lydia) and which guys on the swim team are totally bangable (Stiles and Lydia, much to Scott's aggravation — not that Scott has a problem with them talking about boys, but his mother has instilled in him a strong moral compass and a stance against objectification). Stiles and Lydia have become the kind of friends that can rely on each other for the big things as well as the little, like going to a dance together if neither of them has a date.

Unfortunately, Lydia does have a date (one of the more bangable swim team members), so Stiles does not. He isn't thinking about asking anyone, either. What if she actually ends up liking him? What if they end up making out? What if she touches him and discovers things that aren't supposed to be there? What if she is a he? In that he decides to ask a guy to the dance instead of a girl, not finding out his female date is really male. He'd be totally cool with that. His hypothetical date? Probably wouldn't. Maybe Allison will go with him as her hot French cousin? Still might get weird, especially since he's not totally clear on what, if anything, is happening between her and Scott.

Maybe he and Scott can both go stag. That could be fun. Right?

On his way to his locker — he's more confident in the halls now that he wears the new binder, but still a bit self-conscious about people running into him — Danny stops him.

"Stiles. Hey, Stiles," he calls out until Stiles hears him. He drops back away from the throng of students and into a small alcove to wait for Danny to catch up. When he does, he leans against the wall and looks down at him and Stiles never realized how tall Danny is before. "I figured McCall would've told you, but in case he hasn't, Coach says you're officially off the team if you skip any more practices. You missed our first game, too. Are you seriously quitting?"

He'd gone to the first few practices after his... transformation, stalling in the locker room until everyone cleared out before he could change into his practice clothes. But then he'd spent the whole time on the field too afraid of tangling with anyone that his game was shit anyway. He figured his time was better spent elsewhere trying to find a way to reverse the spell. He'd really been hoping it wouldn't take this long and that he wouldn't be kicked off the team permanently. Just one more shitty thing to add to the pile.

"Uh, yeah," Stiles says, avoiding looking Danny in the eye. For some reason, lying to Danny is harder than lying to other people. "I just don't have time for it anymore. You know how it is."

"Sure, sure," says Danny, like he's in on the secret. "I bet your hot boyfriend takes up a lot of your time."

Blinking, Stiles shakes his head a little because his ears must by clogged and he couldn't have possibly heard that right. "My what?"

"I've seen you with him dozens of times, Stiles, seriously," says Danny.

And crap, he probably means Allison not knowing that the hot guy hanging around Stiles is actually Allison.

"What was his name again? _'Miguel'_?" Danny smirks. "Are we still calling him that?" Well, double crap. That's even worse. "At least he's got you working out independently," he says, and reaches out to cup Stiles's upper arm. "You look good this year."

"I... huh?" Stiles's IQ is plummeting here.

"But you should rethink quitting the team, man. We could still use you." Then Danny leaves with a parting squeeze to Stiles's arm.

He makes it to his locker in a daze where Scott is waiting for him. "Dude, I think Danny was totally hitting on me," Stiles says, pulling open his locker. He gets no response. "Scott." He cranes his head around his locker door to see Scott and finds him staring dopily into the crowded hall. Stiles follows his gaze across the corridor where a pretty Asian girl is glancing shyly back. "Scott!"

Scott blinks, snapping out of it, and turns to him. "What?"

"Are you kidding me?"

 

* * *

 

As soon as school lets out, Stiles drives straight over to Allison's house to ask her about the dance. Scott can't be upset about this, Stiles reasons. They'd only be going as friends, anyway. And it's not like Stiles has a lot of other options. Stiles laughs bitterly to himself. This is his _junior year_ of high school! He should be able to get a date by now. A _real_ date. Not a friend date. Or a favor date. An actual date.

He thinks about Danny complimenting him this afternoon, possibly even flirting with him, and wonders why Danny would notice him _now_ of all times. Especially given the circumstances. He supposes the binder does sort of force him into better posture. Standing up straight is supposedly attractive, or so Stiles has deduced from being told most of his life that slouching is not. It even kind of makes him look like he's bulked up a bit. The binder flattens him, yes, but he has to admit that he still looks a bit bigger around his chest area. And he actually _has_ been working out in his room at night when he can't sleep to try and tone his new softer body into muscle. But Stiles has seen the kinds of guys that Danny goes out with; he wouldn't think he'd fit the bill, now or... his regular self. Maybe Danny's just getting desperate after the probably-not-teenage mutant alpha twins took off without a word or a backward glance. Getting dumped is one thing, but when your boyfriend just up and leaves town without telling you? That's gotta hurt.

And Danny thinks that Derek is Stiles's boyfriend? _Holy hell,_ has Danny been thinking that this whole time?! Other than that one day he saw Derek in Stiles's bedroom, where would he even get such an idea? _Seen them together dozens of times?_ That couldn't possibly be accurate. They've been in the same place at the same time, like, twice. Ever. He'd much rather Danny think that Mallison was his boyfriend. It would be so much less complicated.

When he gets to Allison's, he's disconcerted that her father is the one who buzzes him in. He'd really been hoping Mr. Argent wouldn't be home. Stiles is expecting some sort of awkward and maybe even threatening conversation from him for getting his daughter into this mess. Somehow his silence is even more intimidating.

Allison saves him by dragging him down the hall and into her bedroom. She closes the door, even as her dad watches them from the other end of the hall, and then climbs back onto her bed into a pile of rumpled blankets.

"So, your dad is still terrifying," Stiles says, ambling around her room with his hands in his pockets. "Consistency is nice, at least. One thing we can rely on to never ever change."

Other than the messy bed that Allison is occupying, her bedroom is neat as a pin and decorated unlike any teenager's room he's ever seen, in life or on television. It seems older, more sophisticated. There's tasteful art on the walls instead of band or movie posters, and a distinct lack of clutter atop her dresser and night stand. The only real signs of Allison in the room are her empty quiver hooked over the back of a chair, and a few photographs stuck into the mirror's frame on the wall. Only one of them is of her and Scott, smiling with his eyes closed in a photo booth.

Stiles turns away from that to Allison curled up on the bed. "I know why _I_ feel like building a blanket fort and hiding in it for the rest of the night," he says, pulling the chair over next to the bed and straddling it backwards to face her. He rests his arms on the back and his chin on his arms. "What's your story?"

Wordlessly, Allison plucks a card off the night stand and passes it over to him. It's clearly a Valentine's card, splashes of pinks and reds. Before he opens it, she says quickly, "Don't read his message."

Assuming it's from Scott, Stiles flips it open expecting some sappy poetry. Sappy, _terrible_ poetry. Instead, he finds a huge block of tiny handwriting that he probably couldn't read even if he tried (he tries) filling the entire inside of the card surrounding the standard printed message in the center. And a name signed at the bottom.

_Isaac._

"Wow," he says, looking back up at her with his eyebrows raised.

"Yeah," she sighs.

"But, wow, though." Stiles waves the card in his hand. "I didn't realize he was, like, this serious."

Allison blinks at him, a frown forming between her eyebrows. "Serious?"

"Well, I mean, assuming he believes the story and thinks you're in France like we told everyone, he braved your dad's wrath to get this to you," Stiles says, waving the card again before setting it back on her table. "That's... wow."

"Oh. It is, I guess," she says absently, her gaze unfocused.

Stiles leaves shortly after to let Allison contemplate her existence or whatever.

 

* * *

 

Lounging on his bed, Stiles is completely absorbed in _Wizard and Glass_. People have said it's the weakest in the series, but it's definitely his favorite of the seven books — well, eight now, but he hasn't read the newest one yet.

It's the night of the Valentine's Day dance; Stiles did not end up going, obviously. He's taking a much needed break from Latin spells he doesn't understand and World History homework that boils down to memorizing names and dates. His brain needs some stimulation. His brain and, maybe, other parts. He remembers finding parts of this book kind of sexy the first time he read it several years ago, and maybe he'll finally take Allison's advice. Fuck knows it's been a long six weeks. He stretches out on his bed, leaning back into his pillows and getting comfortable. He'll read a bit more then maybe crack open his laptop for some Stiles time.

This is when Scott crashes into his bedroom, nearly out of breath and with wide, panicked eyes. Stiles bolts up on his bed, letting the book drop to the floor.

"Dude. Oh my god, what is it? Is something here? Is it chasing you?"

Scott stumbles into the room and flops down into the desk chair. "I made out with Allison," he says, though his tone is not quite hitting the right notes for such a statement.

Stiles blinks at him a couple times, looks around himself as if expecting his surroundings to have changed in the past three seconds. "Have we gone back in time? Is it last year again?"

"Stiles!" Scott groans, drawing out his name into extra syllables. "This is serious."

"Okay, okay." Stiles raises his hands, palms outward. "Why do you sound... I mean, are you guys back together? That was what you wanted, wasn't it?"

Scott buries his face in his hands and Stiles can only barely make out his next words. "I couldn't."

"What?"

"I couldn't do it," Scott says again, rubbing his hands up over his head and through his hair. He blows out a huge breath. "I mean we—we did. Kiss. A little bit. But it felt so weird. Different, you know? She has a beard!"

"I am aware." Stiles nods distractedly. Now that he's looking, he can definitely spot the tell-tale signs of beard burn around Scott's mouth.

"And I feel so bad about it. She's still Allison. I _know_ she's still Allison, but..." Scott trails off, staring glumly at the floor.

"Hey, man, I get it," Stiles tells him.

"Do you?" Scott asks, raising his eyes again and he's not just sad. "Because I know that you, uh, y'know."

Stiles recognizes Scott's guilty face when he sees it. "Yeah, Scott, I _'y'know',_ " Stiles says indulgently. "But it can't be the same for you, even if intellectually you know she's still the same person. You can't help who or what you're attracted to, man."

Sitting there, all hunched in on himself, Scott looks small in a way that he hasn't in years. "But it's Allison," he says.

Stiles just nods. "Yeah."

"I still love her. I'll always love her."

Keeps nodding. "I know."

"She told me not to wait and I told her I would anyway. I promised I would wait for her."

"Scotty, bro, you—"

Scott's head snaps up. "Allison's here."

"What?"

"She's here!" Scott hisses, shooting up out of his seat. "She's coming upstairs!"

"Dude, chill."

"Stiles? I—oh." Allison stops just in the doorway, hand poised as if to knock on the frame. Her eyes dart between him and Scott. "Oh. Right." At that, she turns right around. Her hair, for once not bound in its perpetual ponytail, whips in a dark spray behind her as she leaves.

For a second, Stiles remains on his bed. Then he's scrambling toward the door with the briefest glance at Scott on his way out.

"Allison! Wait." He catches her at the bottom of the stairs before she can make for the front door.

"No, it's okay," she says, turning back to face him. "I should've expected he'd be here. You're his best friend, where else would he go? I never should've called him in the first place. I knew it was a bad idea, I just—"

"Hey." He stops her, presses a finger to his lips, then points up to indicate the werewolf and his super ears in his bedroom. Allison follows his finger with her eyes and understanding dawns across her face. She nods once.

"I, um, I'm going to head to Lydia's," she says brightly for the benefit of Scott because she shakes her head at Stiles to negate her words. She's probably just going to go home and wallow. He gets it.

Stiles points up again, then to his wrist where he isn't wearing a watch at the moment, and shrugs to show her that he doesn't know how long Scott will be staying. Allison seems to get it, though; she nods and musters up a tiny half smile for him.

'Text me later,' he mouths to her. 'Promise.'

"Okay," she says, with a tiny laugh and a real smile. She ducks in and hugs him quickly, her strong arms wrapping entirely around his body and giving him a tight squeeze. "Later then."

"Night, Allison." He sees her to the door and watches her get into her car, before going back upstairs to his room where Scott is pacing.

"Is she okay?" Scott asks the second Stiles steps into the room. "You guys got all quiet. She didn't cry, did she?"

He claps Scott on the shoulder. "She's gonna be fine, man."

"Should I follow her?"

"Definitely not," Stiles tells him. He sits heavily back onto his bed. "If she'd wanted to see you, she would have gone to find _you_ , right?"

"But she came here," says Scott. "For you." He points at Stiles.

"And she has Lydia," he says, with a shrug, hoping the generality of the statement doesn't read as a lie. "The girl talk thing, or whatever, just give her some space."

Even if they aren't getting back together, it's obvious that Scott still feels protective of her, and when they are in proximity to one another, Allison usually visibly stops herself from seeking his comfort. She ends up migrating over to Stiles on these occasions, and doesn't let herself linger alone with Scott. Stiles thinks he gets why Allison went to Scott, finally after all these weeks. Isaac's card must have spurred her on, but she clearly couldn't go to _him_ as she is now. Stiles doesn't have an ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend to seek out, but he understands the urge, the loneliness and the need to be touched by someone who cares about him. Someone who wants him. That hug Allison just gave him is the closest he's been in a long time.

"You two _have_ been spending a lot of time together lately," Scott says, sounding almost careful. He's reclaimed his seat in the desk chair and rolled it closer to Stiles's bed.

"Dude, you can't be jealous. One, this is Allison we're talking about. Meaning I would never, ever go there and you know it."

"I know," Scott sighs. "But you guys are, um, more compatible now."

"We really aren't," Stiles tells him, shaking his head. He thinks about that hug. It had felt nice, but only that. "No more than we were before, which is not very. But we are actually friends now; I thought you'd be happy about that."

"I am," Scott says adamantly. "Of course I am." Then suddenly, Scott leans forward and punches him on the arm.

"Ow!" Stiles grasps his left biceps with his right hand. "Werewolf strength, dude. What was that for?"

"You told Allison that I told you... stuff!" He lowers his voice on the last word, eyes darting around like anyone could be listening. Stiles chuckles at him, still rubbing his soon-to-be-bruising arm.

"What, we're bros now," he says. "Bros talk. And I didn't actually tell her anything. I may have slipped and she came to the right conclusions on her own. You can't blame me for that."

"Oh, I can't?"

"Nope. It's in the bro code, and Allison is totally my bro now. You're just gonna have to deal with it, Scotty."

"I don't know if I like you being bros with my ex-girlfriend."

"Hey, she's your friend, too, right? Not just your ex. Maybe you both need to acknowledge that so you can both move on. And anyway, what about that new girl at school I've seen you talking to?"

Scott makes indignant protests but he's blushing so bright he's become like a beacon all on his own, and Stiles promises not to tease him about it anymore. They spend the rest of the night playing video games, eating junk food, and just being guys.

The next day Stiles hangs out with Allison, just the two them. They decide to get out of the house for once and, purely because Stiles feels bad about her having to leave the night before, he lets her talk him into going shopping.

She looks different today, much better than she did yesterday, but there's something else, too. It takes the entire drive to the mall and once they've entered the main doors for Stiles to put his finger on it. Since _it happened_ Allison has stuck to basic clothing, mostly plain long-sleeved shirts and jeans in varying shades of black like she was trying to fade into the background. Trying her best to be unnoticeable. But today, she's wearing a bright blue soft sweater with her black jeans. Instead of the usual sleek ponytail at her nape, she has her hair braided intricately down her back, and her beard is combed more neatly than it's ever been. Possibly even trimmed a bit. She's also painted her fingernails a deep, shimmery purple like the sky over the desert just after dusk.

The trip starts out well enough. Right away, Allison dismisses the idea of discussing Scott or what happened. She says this is about putting it behind her, and Stiles is actually fine with that. He doesn't know what he'd say, really, if she wanted to talk it out.

They get frozen yogurt and Stiles also gets a soft pretzel that he then tears in two and hands half to Allison. It's kind of like being on a date — if they were still in middle school and had any interest in one another in a romantic way. But it is fun, just walking around and talking about non-serious stuff. The general atmosphere is great. Until.

Shopping was supposed to make Allison feel better. Stiles does not fully grasp the concept of retail therapy, unless, of course, it involves him coming home with fun new stuff like video games, new movies, or the occasional action figure. He's a collector, okay? But clothes shopping? Like... why?

But it was Allison's idea, and she'd started out in a good mood. Except she keeps finding things she likes and wants to try on, only she can't because her body is not the body she is used to nor the one she wants. Every time she sees a pretty dress or a nice top, she makes this noise that Stiles can't even stand to hear. It's a soft, exhalation of breath, barely audible except for the way it screams unhappy resignation.

They don't stay out very long, leaving the mall more depressed than ever. Back at Stiles's house, Allison decides to bake an apple pie. The grocery run just doesn't have the same effect as a 'shopping spree'.

 

* * *

 

It takes over a month and a half for the rest of the werewolf population to sniff out their secret and Stiles is, honestly, a little disappointed in all of them.

Isaac figures it out first. Well, he finally manages to catch Allison at her house and that's how he discovers their secret. She doesn't tell anyone how that conversation went.

But it's only a couple days later that Erica sidles up to Stiles in the hallway at school. "I hear you've come down with the same bug as Allison Argent," she whispers in his ear.

Stiles ducks away from her and keeps walking. He is very much not in the mood for this.

"I _knew_ there was something going on with you," she says, keeping pace with him easily. "I gotta say, you covered it up pretty well." She steps in front of him blocking his path. Her eyes drift slowly down his body, lingering on his chest. Stiles resists the urge to fold his arms over himself. "You know, you could probably work it if you tried. You're a little small but I'm sure we could do something with 'em!" She reaches up as if to touch his chest and Stiles slaps her hand away. She just laughs. "If you want any tips, all you have to do is ask."

First Lydia, now Erica. Stiles pivots away from her and starts to walk away.

"Oh, come on!" she cries behind him. "Don't pout. Nobody likes an angry girl."

At that, Stiles wheels around and Erica is right there in his face.

"I'm not. A girl," he grits out. He stares her down until she's the first to blink. Then her face melts and Stiles is _done_. He doesn't need her pity. He turns back around and stomps away. His heart is pounding and off-tempo while he tries to suck air into his lungs.

A hand around his arm makes him jump and he nearly swings a fist into Erica's face. She catches it easily, but gently, and lowers his hand to his side. Her fingers circle his wrist, thumb tracing smoothly back and forth across his skin.

"I'm sorry," she says, and Stiles glares. "I am. I know how it feels when your body is a prison."

The fight goes out of him then, his shoulders dropping, and he gently slides his arm out of her grasp. Erica thinks he never noticed her before, but he remembers the girl she used to be. Quiet and mousy and absent from school a lot. He didn't know much more than that about her back then because she never talked; she'd done her best to be invisible.

"Are you only a bitch now because people think you're hot and you can get away with it?" he asks.

She grins wolfishly. "Pretty much."

He returns the smile, shaking his head, and moves around her to head toward the doors.

"So you haven't found a way to undo it?" asks Erica, walking along beside him. "Assuming you want to undo it."

"Of course I want to undo it!" Stiles stops short to stare at her. "Why would you even say that?"

"I don't know." She shrugs. "Some people might not."

"Huh." He stands still, letting that thought, one that genuinely hadn't occurred to him before, settle into his brain. He absorbs it and files it away, resuming his trudge out of the school. "Well, not me," he tells her. "We're still looking. Definitely want to undo it."

"Okay," she says at his side. "So, how can we help?"

Stiles pushes through the doors and, once they're outside and clear of the crowded hall, he turns around to walk backwards and raise his eyebrows at her. "We?"

 

* * *

 

 _'We'_ includes, apparently, Erica and Boyd, who both accompany him to Deaton's where they meet up with Scott and Lydia. Stiles is _so shocked_ that Deaton's still got nothing, truly he is. His surprise is so enormous that it could fill an entire thimble, really.

Lydia and Scott are busy conferencing in a corner together. Stiles feels like he should probably be more interested in trying to hear what they're whispering about, but he's just really tired today and Allison isn't here to commiserate with him. Erica and Boyd aren't exactly helping, either, too busy making jokes.

"I'd be awesome as a guy," Erica is saying, while simultaneously flipping her hair and leaning seductively next to Boyd. She does everything seductively now.

Stiles can't help himself from sniping, "But you wouldn't be able to use your boobs as a weapon anymore."

Boyd turns baleful brown eyes on him. He doesn't flash them gold or growl or anything, but the message is clear. Erica just smirks. This is why Stiles had wanted as few people as possible knowing about this.

Deaton finally shows some kind of emotion (Interest? Concern? A tummy ache? Who can tell?) when Erica mentions that Derek and Cora have been on the lookout for new supernatural people in town.

"What?" Stiles asks. "Who? Where? When? I haven't noticed any new weird stuff."

"Like, five new students have arrived in the past month, Stiles," Erica says.

 _They have?_ He'd noticed the boom of people moving into town, sure, but other than the new girl that Scott's been talking to, Stiles has no knowledge of this. "That doesn't mean anything," he argues. "What kind of supernatural are we talking here?"

Erica shrugs. "Derek just said to keep our eyes peeled since he can't get close enough." And Derek _has_ spent way less time creeping at the school lately. Who knows what he knows these days?

"It's the Nemeton," Lydia cuts in, speaking up finally. "It's a beacon, remember? It's only a matter of time."

She and Scott seem to have finished their whispering. Scott's face is a picture of grim... grimness. Stiles does not like that face at all. But he doesn't want to ask at the moment. He'll wait for when Allison's here.

Scott makes the decision to go talk to Derek about these new people in town. Stiles really, really wants to go with him — he _hates_ not knowing everything — but a much larger part of him wants to go nowhere near anyone else and maybe just crawl into his bed and stay under the covers for, like, a couple weeks. He makes Scott promise to text him with all the details later. And if Scott forgets, Stiles will hound him. _Hound,_ yes.

 

* * *

 

Allison's been avoiding Scott since their ill-fated make-out, and apparently spending more time with Isaac now that he knows everything, but she still tends to hang out in Stiles's kitchen the most. She's baking something that involves a lot of chopping and hammering, very violent chopping and hammering. Stiles thinks it's walnuts. He can tell she's upset about something, but he's a little afraid to ask. He's mostly just sitting at his own kitchen table and measuring out things when she tells him to.

"Did you know," Allison says, breaking her rhythm for a moment, "there is a rumor going around that I dropped out of school because I'm pregnant?"

"Ah, yeah. I heard that one," he says, carefully, but her face looks as neutral and stony as her voice had sounded. Scott was the one who'd told him about it, actually. He was upset that nobody seems to think it's his. Stiles decides not to tell Allison that part. Instead, he says, "We were gonna shut that down, but Lydia said it would give it more credence if we acknowledged it in any way. That whole _'she's got mono then nope she's in France'_ thing probably didn't help, though."

"Well, thanks. I guess." Allison's arms flex, hands above the chopping board, then slump drastically when she drops her mallet with a thud. "Fuck, I'm eighteen! I should've been graduating this year anyway. I don't know why I even care. It's not like any of those people ever got to know me at all. I was just the new girl, and then the girl with the crazy aunt, and then the girl with the dead mom—"

She cuts off so abruptly that Stiles starts out of his seat before he even looks at her. But she's not crying. Her breathing is calm and even, and her hands are steady as she picks her mallet up once more. Stiles resumes his seat, idly picking at the label on the jar of maple sugar Allison had brought with her this time. He waits a bit, after the chopping starts up again, to speak.

"I just wish this hadn't happened right at the start of lacrosse season. I think I actually had a shot at playing this year." Stiles chances another glance at her, but this time she's narrowing her eyes at him.

"You could still play," she says in a tone of voice that screams _excuse you, girls can play sports just as well as boys and I could have kicked your ass and you know it_.

And all of that is true; Stiles even tells her so. "I don't think my skill-level has diminished at all," he says. "If anything, I'm less clumsy than I used to be. Scott said he thought it might have something to do with a lower center of gravity, but since this is all his fault he's not allowed to be right about anything for the rest of always."

Allison's eyes are smiling even if her mouth, hidden beneath a truly impressive beard now, remains even. "If it's not that, what then?"

He doesn't know how to explain that he was too afraid of getting tackled and risking one of the other guys feeling… something. So he goes with the other obvious problem.

"Um, I don't know how often you've been in the boys' locker room, but even though we all pretend like we are not looking, you'd have to be blind not to notice..." Stiles gestures to his very non-male body. "Stuff. I mean, my boobs are small but they're still there and they are very obviously boobs. They wouldn't even pass for moobs." He doesn't know how he would even begin to explain the binder. Not to mention hitting the showers.

A small snort escapes Allison, but she shakes it away. "Can't you just get changed in the bathroom stall? I used to do that in gym class in middle school when I was really self-conscious," she says, and Stiles is super grateful he doesn't have P.E. this semester. "Or if I was on my period," Allison adds, off-handed.

His eyes snap over to her. In that moment Stiles actually feels the blood drain from his face. And he really doesn't want to think about blood right now. _Oh god._

But that won't happen, right? He's not a _real_ girl, so it won't happen.

 

* * *

 

It does happen. It actually takes over two months after the spell changed him for biology to catch up with Stiles. He's clearly a late bloomer. 

It's not the first time he's woken up to a mess in his sheets, there's just never been so much carnage before.

In between holding his breath and trying not to pass out, Stiles manages to strip his bed bare, screaming at his father not to come in, and dump all of his bedding and himself onto his bathroom floor. The next thing he does is take a shower, carefully rinsing himself everywhere. The next thing he _wants_ to do is lie down in the bottom of the tub and cry, but he calls Allison instead while finding some clean clothes.

Stiles's father lets her in, and she must explain the situation to him because he stops trying to get Stiles to come out of the bathroom. Allison brings him supplies — a box of tampons and a box of sanitary napkins. He grabs the latter.

"This is the worst," Stiles grumbles, fumbling around in the bathroom while Allison waits on the other side of the door. "What the hell is even going on in there? A fucking massacre? It's like Battlefield: Vagina."

"It's your uterus, actually," Allison replies, voice muffled through the door.

"My what? Oh my god I don't want one of those!" he protests, and hears her make a small, affirmative noise like she completely agrees with the sentiment. "This is so messy," he whimpers. 

"That's why tampons," she calls back.

Stiles finishes and washes his hands more thoroughly than a surgeon because _gaaawwd_ , and _ew_ why did he think that? Finally stepping out of the bathroom and flicking off the light, he says to her, "I don't even want to know how those work."

"Pretty simple," says Allison, pushing herself away from the wall by the door.

"No." Stiles slices his arm through the air. "I told you before, I can't even think about... that."

She laughs. "It's not like..." She bites at her smiling lips. "You can't even feel it, I promise. And anyway, I thought that you—" She stops so abruptly it looks like she got freeze-framed. But her eyes widen a fraction and she clamps her mouth shut quickly, looking away from him.

Stiles halts in the doorway. "What?"

She shakes her head. "Nothing."

He narrows his gaze at her. "No, you were going to say something." He feels his eyes go big and round, and he points a finger at her. "Scott told you something. What did he say?"

"No, not anything." She shrugs, shaking her head again, and avoiding his gaze. Then she sighs. "Just that he found your..." she says, still not looking at him, but waving vaguely in the direction of his bed and Stiles _knows_. His whole head ignites like a match, flaming bright and hot. Allison flicks her eyes sideways at him, looping her ponytail around one finger, and shrugging again. "So you've thought about _that_ at least, right?"

"He never said anything," Stiles hears himself say, though he's not sure how he's even breathing through this embarrassment.

"Well, he said you had never really _talked_ about that stuff before so—"

"What? That I bought a sex toy online one night because I was sleep-deprived and delirious, then forgot about it until it arrived and almost opened the package with a giant dildo in it in front of my dad?" Stiles asks, his voice rising comically.

Allison looks at him, unblinkingly now. "I don't think he inferred all that just from seeing it under your bed," she says, biting on her lip to keep from laughing, he can tell. Then, her expression cracking, she asks, "Giant?"

Stiles groans, burying his face in his hands. He makes his way back over to his bed and crawls onto the bare mattress to hide his face in his pillows.

"I've never even used it," he says, muffled by the flannel pillowcase. He rolls onto his side to look at her. "And just because I've thought about... _that_ does not mean that one hole equals another, okay? I can't believe I'm talking to my best friend's ex-girlfriend about this." He rolls his face back into the pillows.

"Who else are you going to talk to about this? Scott? Lydia? Besides," says Allison, shuffling closer to the bed. "I thought we were friends, too."

Stiles turns at the plaintive sound of her voice and peers up at her. "We are," he tells her, gathering himself enough to smile weakly at her. But they don't have that unspoken communication thing going yet, so he says out loud, "And thanks. You know, for everything."

She returns the smile, dimples and beard and bright eyes and everything, and moves to sit on the edge of the bed next to him. Stiles stops her before she can touch down.

"You probably don't want to sit there," he says, indicating the new stain on his mattress.

"Oh, right." She bounces back up, stands there for a second, then says, "I'll go find some upholstery cleaner; you should probably get the bedding into the wash. Rinse it with cold water first," she calls on her way out of the bedroom.

Stiles just nods at her back, doesn't say that he's well-versed in getting bloodstains out of fabric these days.

They spend the rest of the day lounging around Stiles's house, watching television, mostly the Food Network. Stiles is forced to excuse himself to the bathroom far too often and has to hobble around with his body hunched over in agony.

"Does it always hurt this bad?" he asks after the millionth, what he's calling, diaper change in the bathroom. He curls into a fetal position in one corner of the couch, drawing his legs up as tight to his chest as they'll go. "Why does it hurt this bad?"

"It doesn't always, no, but. Well. Maybe it's like all the periods you would have had are catching up with you," she says, handing him the heating pad again. He's glad she was around because he probably wouldn't have thought of using it. "Sometimes, if you've gone a long time without one for... whatever reason, when it finally comes it's, like, a mega-period. And you're seventeen and have never had one, so..."

"Why is that a thing? As a natural, biological process, this seems counter-productive," Stiles says as dryly as he can manage. Allison offers a sympathetic smile.

"Like, when I was in eighth grade," she says, pulling her own legs up onto the couch and resting her chin on her knee. "I stopped eating. For a while. And... yeah." She motions with one hand in a little circle. "Stress can mess you up. I was just so angry all the time. We'd moved four times that year. I had to repeat the grade and I was just—" Her fingers clench around her knees, then relax. "I went more than eight months without a period. When I finally got it, it was brutal."

Stiles starts to sit up, but stops when it makes him feel queasy. He adjusts his position so that he can prop his head on the arm of the couch and look at her. "You don't still...?" he asks.

"No," she says, flashing a quick smile. "I've found other ways of being in control." And he knows that's true. The only other person Stiles knows who is more in control of herself is Lydia. Although, now that he thinks on it, Lydia's facade was carefully constructed and maintained until it was shattered and it had shattered so easily. How difficult must it have been for Allison? All alone.

"What did your parents do?" he asks her.

"They never knew," she answers quietly.

Stiles can't imagine a world in which his father wouldn't notice if he'd stopped eating. Even when he was lying right to his dad's face, he'd still noticed every little thing that Stiles did. Every little thing that was out of place and out of character. 

"Allison, you're the strongest person I currently know," he tells her, solemnly. "Including all the werewolves combined."

Her mouth curves in a gentle smile, face half-hidden in her arms, and her eyes are bright behind the strands of hair fallen over her forehead. It's the most she's looked like _Allison_ in a while.

She picks her head up off her knees and side-eyes him. "Currently?" she asks.

"Yeah," Stiles says, and she follows his eye to the framed photograph of his mother on the side table near the window.

"I wish my mom was here," Allison says softly.

"Me, too," Stiles whispers back.

He and Allison are still camped out on the sofa when his dad comes home. Stiles has to check and, yes, it is dark out already and much later than he'd realized. He usually has dinner at least started by this time, if not done and just keeping warm. But when Stiles swings his legs out from under his blanket nest and moves to get up off the couch, his dad is already swooping into the room and setting two pizza boxes out on the coffee table. He also holds aloft a carton of Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream.

"You're the best, Dad."

"That I am," he says with a wink, and invites Allison to stay for dinner. She doesn't put up much of a protest and between the three of them, they demolish the pizzas and Stiles even lets his dad have a small bowlful of ice cream.

He's taken to this unbelievably well, Stiles's father. He never falters around Allison, calls her by name easily, no double-takes when she comes over, or staring at her uncomfortably. He's only made one comment about this whole situation to Stiles since the beginning, and it was just to elicit a promise that Stiles would keep him updated on everything. He hasn't treated Stiles any differently, regarding this as a temporary condition. He believes that Stiles is Stiles no matter what. Even if it ends up being not so temporary — and neither of them has brought that up — but even _if_ , Stiles knows in his heart that his dad will still be here for him.

After she leaves, Stiles's dad sits next to him on the couch and pats his ankle only the tiniest bit awkwardly. "How, uh, how are you feeling?" he asks.

"About the same? I guess," Stiles replies. He's curled back up against the arm of the couch with the heating pad tucked up against his abdomen. "Maybe I just never paid attention before, but I don't remember anyone ever saying how much this actually hurts. Like, are we sure there's not something wrong? I mean, besides the obvious. Because I'm talking some serious pain here."

"I remember," his dad says, then chuckles at Stiles's confused look. "I'm pretty sure nothing's wrong; you're just your mother's son." He pauses then, with a weird look on his face. "Definitely her son."

"What does that mean?"

"Your mother had, you know..." He waves his hand vaguely, a constrained expression on his face. "Irregular cycles."

"Oh god, Dad, why," Stiles moans, not wanting to hear or talk about this, really.

"Sometimes they could be pretty painful," he says, making placating gestures. "You remember she always called you her little miracle baby."

"I thought that was just something people _say_."

"There were years there she thought she'd never get pregnant," Dad says, stroking Stiles's foot now. "And then she was so happy when she finally found out about you."

It's a story Stiles heard quite a bit from his mom when he was little. How she'd prayed and wished and hoped for him so hard and was finally granted her miracle. He also recalls, later, wishing that she'd saved her miracle for something else.

Dad's getting that far away look in his eye, the one he gets before the melancholy and the drinking set in. Stiles can't let that happen.

"You know," he says, stretching his legs out and poking his dad in the side. "Of all the things I could've inherited from Mom — her language skills, her writing, her double-jointed thumbs — this? This is not the thing I would've picked."

Dad laughs, grabbing Stiles's foot and wrestling it back down onto the couch. Stiles congratulates himself on a distraction well done.

 

* * *

 

He stays home from school for the rest of the week. He claims crippling pain, which isn't untrue, and his dad relents, but really Stiles just doesn't want to risk running into any werewolves and their nosy... noses.

So, obviously, that goes to hell when there's a knock on his door around eleven in the morning. Stiles hauls himself up from the couch to answer it and nearly trips over himself when he sees who it is.

"Oh," exhales Derek, sounding a little surprised. Stiles hadn't missed the flare of his nostrils, and awkwardly tries to shield himself with the door. It's tapered off considerably since the first couple days, but Stiles is still bleeding. He's also wearing neither his usual dousing of Axe nor his chest binder. Derek blinks and focuses back on his face. "Erica said you'd missed school all week."

"And I bet she told you all the latest gossip, too," Stiles shoots back. Erica might've offered to help and maybe even sympathized with him a little, but she's still kind of a vindictive bitch.

"She told me about your... what happened, yes," Derek says. "Not that I needed her to."

Stiles stands up straight, one hand still holding the door tightly, the other held close over his chest. "You already knew?" he accuses. "Since when?"

Derek shuffles his feet, hands stuffed into his jacket pockets. "That day in the SuperMart," he admits like guilty plea. "I could tell something was off before I even saw you."

"You've known this whole time?" Stiles asks, dismayed. "When you asked me if I was ever going to tell you what-what I was hiding... you already knew."

Derek shrugs. "There wasn't anything I could do," he says. "Still isn't. Sorry."

"You looked?" asks Stiles, surprised. Derek shrugs again. "Oh. Well. We're still working on it, so... um."

"When Erica said you weren't in school, I thought—well." He shifts his weight from foot to foot again. He's looking altogether shiftier than usual today. Heh, _shifty_. "I asked Scott, first, if something was wrong, but he just said you told him you were sick and that he shouldn't risk coming over in case he could catch it, too." Derek gives him a look at that, like he's not sure if Stiles is the dumb one here for trying that, or if Scott is for believing it.

And that's not precisely what Stiles had said to Scott, but it was the general gist of what he'd implied. He couldn't stomach Scott coming over and _knowing_. Pretty much like Derek right now.

"But I can see that you're fine," Derek continues, "so I'll just—"

Stiles doesn't mean to, but a tiny hysterical laugh bubbles out of him. He claps a hand over his eyes, feeling a tight sting behind them. "This is not fine," he says. "None of it is fine."

With his eyes still covered, Stiles can feel Derek still standing on his porch, shifting his weight back and forth like he's undecided whether he should stay or go. Stiles wipes his hand across his eyes, just to make sure there's no visible leakage there, and looks back to Derek.

"You wanna come in?" he asks, opening the door wider. Derek hesitates for only a split second before accepting the invitation. He follows Stiles into the living room with his shoulders hunched and his hands still stuffed into his pockets.

"I'm watching _Juno_ ," Stiles tells him. He gathers his blanket nest from the couch and shoves it all over to one side so there's more room. "This was already a great movie, but I feel a new kinship with her now that I never got before." He sits in his spot against the couch arm and looks up at Derek lurking awkwardly in the middle of the room.

After an interminable pause, Derek slinks over to the opposite end of the couch and sits. "At least you know you're definitely not pregnant," he says.

Stiles barks a laugh, more out of surprise than anything. He shudders to even think it. "Don't even joke about that, man."

Incrementally, Derek seems to relax into the couch, and in Stiles's presence, while they watch the movie. Eventually he even removes his jacket.

"I love Ellen Page," Stiles says some time later. "Hey you think I'd have a shot with her now that I'm... uh." He flutters a hand down his body.

Derek eyes him without a single muscle on his face even twitching. "No more of a shot than you had before." And Stiles laughs out loud again.

"You'll be pleased to know that I no longer faint at the sight of blood," he jokes. "I'm a total badass now. Seriously, girls are hardcore."

"I grew up in a house full of women," says Derek. "Believe me, I know."

He smiles at that because Derek is smiling a little, too, and that's a rare thing when talking about his family or his past. Even more rare considering how seldom Derek brings it up. Stiles wonders what that must've been like, though, growing up in a house bursting full with people. Sisters and cousins and aunts and grandparents. Always having someone around to talk to, or play games with, or just be with sharing the same space. He can imagine that last one more acutely for Derek. He's the kind of person who can just sit comfortably with someone without needing to interact, to fill silences.

Stiles, not so much.

"So, how goes the construction?" he asks during a commercial break when neither of them has said anything for too long.

"Fine," Derek responds slowly, a hint of confusion in his tone. "It's happening a lot more quickly than I thought it would."

"That's good, right?"

"Yeah. Yes. It means Cora and I won't be crammed together in our tiny temporary apartment for too much longer, so definitely good, yeah."

"You got a new apartment?"

"It's just a short-term lease until my building's ready to be inhabited again."

"Oh. Yeah. Makes sense." Stiles nods along to his words but this is the most inane and awkward conversation he and Derek have ever had. "You know what's never made sense to me? That you inhabit a place, but if you can't inhabit it then it's called inhabitable. Do we call it habitable if you can inhabit it? That's not a word, is it? Is it?" Derek is just looking at him now. Stiles pushes himself up from the couch "I'm gonna make popcorn. You want? I've got a bag of chocolate chips, too."

Derek continues just looking at him. After a moment, he says, "Do you pour the chocolate chips over the popped popcorn so it gets a little melty?"

"Obviously."

"Okay." He stands and follows Stiles into the kitchen.

They end up eating two whole bowls of popcorn between them and almost half the bag of chocolate chips. Derek stays through the end of the movie and, when it starts to feel awkward again, Stiles decides to start another.

Allison comes over while Derek is still there. She's only a little annoyed that they ate the chocolate chips since technically it was her bag she'd bought for baking purposes. But then Derek shows them how to make s'more pies in a cupcake tin and all seems forgiven.

Well, not all. Derek and Allison are understandably wary around one another. They don't sit next to each other and if Stiles leaves the room, one of them usually follows him. It is weird seeing the two of them together in the same room. Stiles admits to himself that they don't actually look at all alike aside from the dark hair and beards. Allison is lean where Derek is all muscular bulk. He's also shorter than Allison by a couple of inches now. Her eyes are narrow and dark while Derek's are so light they stand out spectacularly. Allison laughs more readily and her smile is all dimples and straight white teeth. Derek's smile is small and soft and it feels like some sort of victory every time Stiles gets one aimed at him.

Derek excuses himself and is gone only a few minutes before Stiles's dad gets home. Stiles has to wonder if Derek actually heard the sheriff coming and decided to hightail it out of there or what. He doesn't know why; his dad sort of likes Derek now. Allison stays for dinner again and she doesn't mention Derek's being there, either.

 

* * *

 

Life goes on. As does Stiles. He forgets the pain he'd felt and most of the mess, although those boxers were unsalvageable. He goes back to school, and back to hanging with Scott, and somehow gets roped into going out with something that might be considered 'the whole gang.' It was supposed to be just him, Scott, Lydia, and Allison. But then Isaac had come with her, and with _him_ came Erica, Boyd, and Cora. Stiles is really not sure of the dynamics here and it's making him more jittery than usual.

He's sandwiched between Scott and Allison, with Isaac on her other side. He's not feeling the tension here _at all_.

They've come to 'Teen Night' at this new club called Utopia. The building used to be a local AM radio station way back in the day, like the eighties or something. It was converted into a live music venue sometime in the nineties, then called Transmission, went out of business for a while, and now it's back under new owners. It's a decent sized space, though the underwater themed décor is a little too reminiscent of the fifties dance in _Back To The Future_ , but the music isn't terrible so everything's cool except for the big black X they all have on their hands to keep them from obtaining alcohol.

"This place is a hole," Cora says loudly enough so that even the non-werewolves can hear her over the music. Stiles doesn't know why she's hanging around them, besides the fact that Erica and Boyd clearly dragged her out and then disappeared into the crowded dance floor. She looks like she's casing the joint, or maybe she just wants to leave. She looks the way Stiles imagines Derek would look if he were here.

"Oh, _there_ they are," Lydia intones, and if she could set people on fire with her mind, Stiles is sure the girls across the room would be a smoldering pile of ash right now. She turns abruptly, hair flying dramatically over her shoulder. "Allison, I need you."

"Really?" Allison asks, and it's almost a whine. "Are we really going to do this?"

"Yes." Lydia brooks no argument. Reluctantly, Allison slides away from her spot on the wall next to Stiles.

"What's going on?" asks Scott, looking around the place in confusion.

"Those little bitches—" Lydia starts, and Allison interrupts with a reproachful, "Lydia."

"Since Jackson left, then Aiden left, _they_ ," Lydia emphasizes, indicating the group of girls, "think they're going to become hot shit in my place? I'll show them."

Lydia Martin, the smartest person in their class, hell, probably the smartest person in the _whole town_ , on track to become valedictorian, and she's still so hung up on social hierarchies and projecting the perfect image. Stiles just doesn't... no, actually, no he totally gets it. He does. If there's a balance to their new, weird, supernatural-infested lives, it's making their everyday, public lives as perfect and normal as possible. The status must remain quo.

"But why does it have to be me?" asks Allison.

"You're hot," Lydia tells her, matter-of-fact.

"It's true," Stiles agrees and gets elbowed in both sides by Scott and Isaac. "Ow!"

Allison relents with a deep sigh. She straightens her shoulders and stands to her full height, takes Lydia by the hand, and they move together onto the dance floor.

Watching Lydia and Allison dance together is not like watching Lydia and _Allison_ dance together. Even in those heels that Lydia is wearing, Allison still towers over her. She is very much the picture of tall, dark, and handsome; an _older_ man with the beard and all. Bound to make any girls jealous. Even at the height disadvantage, though, Lydia manages to wind her arms around Allison's neck and bring them together for a kiss.

Stiles feels his own eyebrows creep up his forehead.

Beside him, Scott looks away from the sight. "This is weird."

On his other side, Isaac leans in. "Kinda hot, though."

Stiles ducks out from between them and moves to Scott's other side. If those two are going to fight over Allison, he's not getting in the middle of it. The kiss wasn't even very... steamy. Practically chaste, Stiles would say. And even though Allison is still Allison, it wasn't like watching two girls make out or anything. Isaac wasn't wrong, though; it was hot. Seems to have worked, in any case; those girls Lydia was trying to show up are making disgruntled faces in her general direction.

He slides further away from Scott and Isaac, and closer to Cora. They haven't talked much since that time he sort of helped save her life. She's not a talker, Cora. Stiles assumes it's a Hale thing, Peter having clearly been the outlier there.

Stiles nods at her when she looks over, jerks his head in the direction of the dance floor with an inquisitive eyebrow and a half smile. She rolls her eyes at him and saunters away, probably to find Erica. Those two are pretty tight these days.

Defeated, Stiles slumps back against the wall. He's still too self-conscious about his body to go out there and dance by himself. What if someone he doesn't know tried to dance with him? It would be nice if Stiles could just walk up to someone and ask them to dance, touch them, be touched by them. Kiss them even if just playfully the way Allison and Lydia are doing. Sometimes he craves hands on his body so badly he physically aches. This isn't a new longing, but it seems sharper now, heightened.

It's not going to happen tonight, that's for sure. Stiles doesn't know how much longer he'll be forced to sit on the sidelines. Their wells of information are starting to run dry and they've still unearthed pretty much nothing. The thing they're mostly banking on now is Lydia's lead in Hong Kong. She hasn't given an update on that front in a while, and Stiles hasn't had the balls ( _Hah!_ ) to ask, dreading he won't like the answer.

Scott and Isaac find their way back over to him, and somehow Isaac's conjured up a drink from somewhere. It's not even fair since alcohol has no effect on him. He cranes around Scott to peer at Stiles.

"Are you guys seriously just going to stand here hiding against the wall all night?" asks Isaac.

"I'm not really a great dancer," says Scott. "Slow dancing is okay, but..." He gestures to the dance floor, at Allison maybe, or the upbeat tempo of the music. Isaac seems to accept this, but he raises his eyebrows at Stiles.

Unwilling to get into this here, with _Isaac_ of all people, Stiles just shrugs, and says, "Get me a drink first and we'll see." He smirks, and Isaac just shakes his head at both of them.

"Whatever," he says, pushing away from the wall and moving off until he disappears into the revelry.

"You're a good dancer, Stiles," says Scott, leaning in close to his ear. "Girls would probably dance with you if you just went out there. Or boys," he adds, supportively.

Stiles wouldn't say he's a _good_ dancer. He is definitely better than Scott. He enjoys dancing, too, and he kind of thinks he'd rather like dancing with a guy right now.

"Like, what about that guy? He looks like your type." Scott points out the back of a dude who appears to be dancing on his own, until Stiles sees Lydia next to him with a blond guy attached to her back.

"Dude," says Stiles, "that's Allison." She's still technically dancing with Lydia, but they aren't touching anymore and there's room for people to move in between them. Scott pales next to him and looks down at his shoes. "And what do you mean, 'my type'? How would you even know what my type is? I don't have a type," Stiles asserts. "And another thing." He scowls at Scott and punches him on the shoulder.

"What was that for?" Scott looks up at him and rubs his arm, but that's likely more for show. Stiles couldn't have possibly bruised him.

"Payback, dude." He points a finger in Scott's face. "You told Allison stuff, too."

Scott just shrugs it off. "She was my girlfriend."

"There's a bro code, man."

"Which you also broke," Scott points out.

"She's my bro!" Stiles defends, waving his arm toward the blissfully unaware Allison. She's not quite letting go the way she might normally, but she looks like she's having a good time, finally. Scott's laughing now, too, and Stiles can't help but join him.

This is his life for now. It's not... it's not _that_ bad, he supposes.

 

* * *

 

On the nights when Stiles can't sleep, he has to find things to occupy his mind. Hitting the same dead ends in his research and rereading the same books over and over can only go on so long before he starts to crack. He finds himself too distracted to watch movies, mind still running through everything he's memorized about spells and rituals to pay attention. Luckily, he's still got his good old fallback, especially on the nights his dad is working overtime.

Listening in on the police scanner is probably the only reason he hears about the 'skirmish' in the woods.

And the bodies that have disappeared from the county coroner's office.

When he hears that, he sends a quick text to Scott: **DEAD BODIES MISSING! OMG DO WE HAVE ZOMBIES NOW?!**

It takes nearly fifteen aggravating minutes of pacing his bedroom to get a reply, but finally Scott texts back: **THERE ARE ZOMBIES???**

A couple minutes after that, while Stiles is still composing a reply, Scott sends: **It's not zombies. Derek says taken care of. Going back to sleep.**

Stiles just stares at his phone. _What?_ He texts Scott again: **WHAT?!**

Since when are they just taking Derek's word on this stuff? That is not how they operate! Stiles's _dad_ is out there!

He pulls on a hoodie and his sneakers, collects his keys, and is out the door in under a minute. He's just unlocking his Jeep when his dad's cruiser pulls up in the driveway behind it, blocking him in. Stiles hurries over to the car, barely leaving space for his dad to open the door and climb out.

"Thought you might be about to do something stupid," his dad says, pushing Stiles back so he can stand up and close the car door behind him.

"What's going on? What do we need to do? I'll call Scott back." Stiles already has his phone out and ready, but his dad places his own hand over Stiles's and pushes it back down gently.

"We don't need to do anything. That's why I'm here. I figured you'd be listening for... weird things happening, and I came to stop you before you ran off half-cocked."

"But, dad! What if—"

"And," he says overtop of Stiles, "I came to tell you that it's already taken care of. Yes, there was an incident at the morgue— _Not_ zombies," he cuts in when Stiles opens his mouth. He's got Stiles by the elbow now, leading him back into the house. "Some bodies were taken, but the culprit, or culprits I should say, have been found and dealt with. You don't need to call Scott, he already knows. Hale was there. Both of them."

"Wait. _Derek_ took care of it? For real?"

"In a manner of speaking," his dad replies, but Stiles knows his evasive voice when he hears it. "Frankly, kid, this is a little above my pay grade. I was hoping to speak with Chris Argent sometime soon."

"Oh. Uhhh. I think he's been, um, a little preoccupied lately."

"Yeah, I imagine he has." They've made it into the kitchen without Stiles noticing, and his dad deposits him in a chair. "In any case, it's over for now and there's nothing else to be done tonight. You've got school tomorrow, so you'd better get on up back to bed, hm?" And there's really no arguing with that 'hm' so Stiles tromps back up the stairs and continues not sleeping until he finally passes out.

 

* * *

 

They meet after school in the neutral space of Deaton's. Technically, in the kennel area behind Deaton's because the man does actually run a veterinarian practice where real live people bring in their pets for regular checkups during the daytime hours. Fortunately, there aren't any canines in residence at the moment. Except for the assorted werewolves, obviously. Stiles chuckles to himself. He gets matching looks of idle hostility from Cora and Boyd, and a smirk from Erica because those are the three directly to Stiles's left.

Everyone else is paying attention to Scott and Derek. Everyone else meaning _everyone else_. Lydia and Allison are to Stiles's right, with Isaac, Scott, and Derek rounding out the circle. It's the first time they've all been together since… ever. Stiles blinks at the realization. Even when they were all working on the same side last fall, Stiles can't recall a time when all of them were in the same room at the same time.

He guesses it was about time, especially now that they have this new threat to deal with.

"It's not a threat," Derek says, for possibly the third time.

"It is if it's drawing..." Scott pauses. "What did you call them?" 

"Wendigos."

"Yeah, those!" Scott shouts. "And another alpha! And who knows what else!"

"Who is this other alpha?" asks Lydia, sounding much more calm than Scott.

"Her name is Satomi," says Derek, matching her calm, "and she was here to help. She took care of the wendigos before it could escalate."

"She didn't kill them," Allison points out, sounding like an accusation.

"It wasn't necessary," Derek replies.

"But they eat people!" Scott throws his hands up, then buries his fingers in his hair like he might be getting a headache.

"Are we sure we don't have zombies?" Stiles interjects, aiming for some levity. Scott still looks pained, and everyone else annoyed.

"They don't eat live people," Derek reiterates. "At least, they don't _need_ to. There was a family, a while back…" He pauses, looking away from all of them. It's pretty obvious that 'a while back' means when his own family was still alive. "They owned and operated a funeral home. It's how they survived. They would… encourage the bereaved to consider cremation."

Stiles is gratified to see that everyone looks as confused as he feels. Derek rolls his eyes at all of them.

"So they could give the family ashes without actually burning the bodies, which they would consume themselves," he explains.

"Oh." Stiles nods. Then wrinkles his nose. "Ew." Although, he has to admit that's pretty smart. Possibly unethical, but more ethical than eating live people. Scott's the one who actually voices the ethics of this.

"They don't need the whole bodies," Derek tells them, "just the organs to live. They can get those without the cremation ruse, too."

"Still pretty gross, though," says Erica, flippantly. Across from her in the circle, Isaac is nodding his agreement.

"Is nobody else concerned that a family of creatures who live off of human organs moved in around the block from me?" asks Lydia.

"Or that we're going to school with one of them?" adds Isaac. Everyone looks around, uncertain, except Derek with his eyes averted and a downward turn of his mouth, and Cora who just looks mightily pissed off.

"But _wendigos_?" asks Stiles because he can't help himself. "For _real_? I thought they were supposed to be humans who turned to cannibalism and became demons slowly over time. Also, they live in the Northeast."

"And werewolves only turn on the full moon, into slavering beasts who can't control themselves," Derek throws back. Stiles puts his hands up, conceding. Fair point.

"You said they don't _need_ to eat live people," Allison says, eyeing Derek. "But sometimes they do?"

He doesn't look away from her hard gaze when he nods. "If they don't have a steady supply of... somewhat ethically sourced bodies," he says with a roll of his head in Scott's direction, "then yes, it happens. Everyone needs to eat. It's survival."

"So stealing the bodies from the morgue..." Stiles starts, and Derek finishes: "They were starving. It was a last resort."

"A last resort before going after live people, you mean," Allison says, standing taller and crossing her arms over her chest.

"That won't happen now that we've intervened," Derek tells her plainly.

"We?" She arches an eyebrow at him. "You mean this new alpha that we don't even know. Is _she_ a threat?"

"Yeah," says Scott, "I still don't get why she'd be here, since you said her pack was further south."

"You woke the Nemeton." For the first time, Derek loses his cool and sounds a lot like the old Derek. "It _is_ drawing them here. The wendigo family is just one of many. And Satomi came because… because she knew my mother." He says the last bit quietly, looking down at the ground. "I didn't even know she was still alive until I saw her."

A silence stretches out, everyone glancing at one another unsure what to say. Finally, Stiles clears his throat.

"One of many?" he asks. "You're saying more will be coming soon?"

Beneath his thick, furrowed brow, Derek's eyes find Stiles. "I'm saying they're already here."

In addition to the wendigo family, the Walcotts, that have apparently moved in around the block from Lydia, Derek explains, they've also got a Waheela woman running the new bookstore in town; a pair of Encantado sisters are the ones who've reopened that club they all went to, Utopia; and the kitsune woman who owns the new sushi place is interested in purchasing one of Derek's condos. She also has a daughter who attends Beacon Hills High, but Derek and the others haven't met her yet. Also, Derek's not sure, but he thinks the little old man who opened up a farmer's market south of town might be a púca.

"And Deputy Parrish?" Stiles asks. Derek gives a sort of half-shrug-nod combo that Stiles is taking to mean probably. "I knew it!" 

So this is what Derek and the leatherettes have been up to these past few months; Stiles just hasn't been paying attention. Erica even told them, and Stiles had let it slip right out of his mind.

"And yes, there will be more," Derek continues. "Some of them could be dangerous, and no, we can't stop them from showing up."

"Can't we just shut the Nemeton down again?" asks Scott.

"That's what caused problems in the first place," a venomous voice snaps.

"Cora," admonishes Derek, but she just flashes her steely gaze at him and continues.

"No. They don't know anything, Derek. Mom was the steadying force here because she had to be, but the Nemeton is what's supposed to keep the balance. No harm came to the town before _hunters_ cut it down." At this, Cora turns her glare on Allison, before settling on Scott.

"She's right," Derek confirms. "Right now, while it's still rebuilding, they seek out the potential of that promised sanctuary. It will take time for the Nemeton to stabilize, but the alpha—" Here he looks to Scott. "—can set the rules."

"Is that what this other—this Satomi was doing?" asks Allison. "Is she here to take Beacon Hills?"

Derek shakes his head. "She used to live here, a long time ago before she became an alpha of her own pack. She doesn't want to take anything, but she could feel the pull of the Nemeton's power, too. Her pack's home isn't that far away and it could be dangerous to them if it went left unchecked. Its awakening doesn't just affect us."

"But what am I supposed to _do_?" asks Scott.

"Be the alpha," Derek says like that is just the answer to everything and Stiles throws his hands up, stepping forward to break the circle.

"Can we please just have one problem at a time?!" he yells to the sky. "Is that so much to ask?" He grabs chunks of his hair and tugs until it stings. He spins and rounds on Lydia. "Please tell me you have something. Anything. Your guy in Hong Kong," he pleads. His eyes are starting to burn, opened too wide and unblinking, and his head keeps nodding uncontrollably, waiting for her to agree, to give him the good news he needs.

Lydia, however, drops her gaze to the ground, head bowing so that he can barely see her face anymore.

And there's his answer. Stiles didn't know it until this very second that that was their last hope.

"There's no way to reverse this spell," Lydia utters so very quietly.

The words linger, hanging in the air for a long moment of silence, before they settle like dead leaves in a mud puddle and sink in for everyone. They all erupt at once into cacophonous sound. Stiles doesn't catch all of what everyone is saying, snippets of _'we can't know that'_ and _'we just have to keep looking_ ' that the buzzing numbness in his mind mostly drowns out.

"We can't reverse the spell because it's not really a spell," Lydia says over all of them and it's not a wonder that someone so petite can project as well as she does. It shuts them all up. "You tried working a ritual meant to refocus your energies. To—to strengthen your connection to one another. Well, you did. Or, you two did." She gestures at Allison and Stiles. "It seems to have bounced off Scott."

"But it didn't work," says Allison.

"Obviously," Erica retorts, reminding Stiles that all of the others are present, too.

"No, she means it didn't focus anything," Stiles explains. "It was supposed to get rid of the nightmares and, I don't know, wipe us clean or whatever of the stupid Nemeton," he ends up nearly yelling the last bit, waving his arms wildly. "But it's still there."

"You feel it?" asks Derek. "The Nemeton's power, you two can feel it the way we can? Like a pull?"

Stiles starts to say something, stops, tries again, but his mouth is just flapping in the breeze here because, no, it doesn't feel like that to him. He looks to Allison, and she gives a tiny shake of her head, shoulders lifting just barely.

"But the nightmares," says Scott, stepping up next to Stiles, close enough to feel his heat and his strength. Stiles looks to Allison again.

"Maybe we're just fucked up?" he says to her, and only her. The creeping sensation of foreboding has been following Stiles around so long, and maybe this whole time that was just him. Just his messed up brain. He knows Allison feels anxiety, too, and experiences it in different ways than him.

"Lydia?" Allison asks, voice unsteady. "Are you sure?"

"I don't—" Lydia stops, lets out a string of curses in a language that might be Cantonese, then looks straight at them. "I'm sorry. I tried."

Her chin wobbles and her eyes shine with unshed tears. Stiles wants to comfort her, to tell her it's all right, that he understands, but he just can't make himself move. He doesn't hear anything after that, either. He thinks maybe Derek and Scott drive him home, but nothing feels real and nothing seems to penetrate his foggy brain. He doesn't sleep well that night but he has no recollection of lying awake, either.

 

* * *

 

Stiles is lying listlessly on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, and listening to some old school Weezer. _Say it ain't so,_ indeed. The whiskey isn't really helping; he doesn't know why this is his dad's go-to, to be honest. He takes another swig anyway, and sets the bottle back down on the floor.

He's just going to stay here forever, he thinks. He's stuck. He is _stuck_ like this. For the rest of his stupid life.

All of their searching and reading and rereading and analyzing has yielded nothing. If Lydia says there's no way of reversing the spell, or the not-a-spell, or whatever it is, Stiles believes her. Lydia doesn't give up. If there were a way, she'd find it, and if she says there's no way...

It's been a couple days since Lydia broke the news — and Stiles could tell that it was something she'd been sitting on for a while, doing her best to refute the evidence, coming at it from every angle without letting them know. _That's_ how he knows, incontrovertibly, that Lydia is right.

As for their other problems… well, he's kind of glad he wasn't really needed for that. With Derek's help and Satomi's guidance, Scott is visiting all of the new supernatural residents of Beacon Hills. Introducing himself, making sure they know there's an alpha here, with a pack. Or two packs. Or whatever they're calling all the werewolves and associates these days. Stiles offered to go with them, but when they all said it would be better if it was just Scott, he had to admit to himself that he was relieved. Scott's keeping him up to speed, and Lydia's making records of who and what Scott is meeting with, and Stiles is happy he can put off being inspected by more super noses for a while.

He doesn't know how long he's been on his bed drinking like this when there's a soft tap on his door, then the low creak of it opening slowly. Allison peeks in and Stiles drops his blank stare from the ceiling to meet her eyes. Stiles turns the music down to a barely audible murmur. Allison enters, unhurried and downcast, and he knows how she feels. She sort of floats ghostlike to his bed and perches on the edge. They sit there, not speaking, for a long moment, and Stiles goes back to his riveting study of the cracks in his ceiling. The room isn't even spinning yet, so he can't have been here that long.

Lydia has been keeping Allison in the loop on all Nemeton-related happenings, but Stiles hopes she isn't here to talk about that. He's too numb and his head too foggy to think about it right now. Neither of them says anything for so long that Stiles wonders if Allison was just wanting silent company.

Then very quietly, Allison's voice quivers out, "I slept with Isaac last night."

Stiles inhales too quickly and it gets trapped in his throat for a second. He forces it out and rises up onto his elbows, goes a little lightheaded and has to blink the room back into focus. Perhaps he'd been lying there longer than he'd thought.

Allison turns her face toward him, still looking a bit dazed. "Do you think I should tell Scott?"

"Uhhh..."

"I think I'm supposed to tell Scott," she says calmly, her voice measured and dull.

"No!" Stiles says, abruptly, then makes a face at himself. "I mean, I don't know. Probably no. I might have to. It's a best friend thing. But you—I mean you guys are broken up. Right?"

"Yes," she says, still in that slow, careful manner. "But—"

"Also he's—" Stiles cuts himself off, eyes darting away.

"What?" Allison asks with the hint of a sniffle and that's not what Stiles wants.

"N-nothing." Stiles shakes his head. "Never mind."

"Stiles," she says with a definite tremor in her voice now. Her face crumples and Stiles can't deal with a grown Mallison crying.

"There's a new girl at school!" he blurts. Allison blinks wetness out of her eyes and focuses on him. "Scott's kinda into her," he continues more reluctantly. "She's definitely into him. I don't need werewolf senses to notice that." She's also, apparently, that kitsune woman's daughter and maybe one herself, but Stiles isn't going to bring that up now.

"Oh." Allison nods. Then her face does that thing again and real tears start to fall.

"Hey, no!" He pushes into a full upright position beside her, steadying himself on the edge of the mattress. "Me telling you was supposed to stop the crying!"

"I'm not crying," Allison blubbers, furiously wiping at her eyes. "I don't cry."

"What? No, you can cry," Stiles says, awkwardly patting her shoulder. "Just because it makes me super uncomfortable doesn't mean you should let that affect you."

"You weren't actually a consideration here," she tells him with a watery weak smile. She shakes herself, rubbing her eyes dry. "Be a man, Allison."

"I object to that." Stiles squeezes her shoulder once before letting go. Allison lets out a breathy, hiccupping laugh, and her head drops back so she can stare up at Stiles's infinitely interesting ceiling. He shifts around to dangle his legs over the side of the bed next to her. "You okay?"

"M-hm." She nods once, sharply, only a slight hitch in her breath. "Yeah. And it's good, you know? He's moving on. Scott deserves that. I told him I didn't want him to wait for me."

Stiles thinks whether Scott moving on with a possible kitsune is good or not remains to be seen, but he's not going to say that right now, either. He goes back to patting Allison's shoulder. It's not any less awkward than it was before.

"And, you know, you can't be expected to wait around for him, either. I mean, he had a shot. You guys... you, uh, you tried. Like this. And he—"

"Yes. Exactly." Allison sits very straight on the edge of the bed, calming her own breathing with deep inhales and exhales. Stiles tries not to fidget at her side.

"But not Isaac, huh?" he says, when the silence and the tension become too much to bear. "I mean, wow. Versatile wolf, who knew?"

That breaks Allison's breathing exercise into a tiny, gasping snort of a laugh. She bumps his shoulder with hers, dimpled smile aimed at the floor.

"So, was it... you know." Stiles bumps back. "Good?"

"Stiles! I'm not—" She flaps her hand at him, shaking her head with her mouth stuck open waiting for words to come forth. A short, soft laugh pops out instead, and her lips stretch into a wry grin. "He wasn't... put off."

"Aw, yeah." Stiles nods. " _Bom-chicka-wah-wah_."

Allison laughs again and shoves him harder this time. He flops sideways into his pillows and decides to just stay there. _Allison's got someone_ , he thinks. _Good for her._ But a small part of him that's steadily growing larger has never felt more lonely in his life.

"But I'm not... this," Allison says soberly a moment later. "I can't stay like this." She gets up from the bed and goes over to the mirror on the back of his closet door. She bends close, her nose just inches from the glass, probably inspecting her red eyes. "At least I don't have mascara running down my face," she says.

"I thought they made that stuff waterproof," Stiles retorts, not moving from his sprawl across his pillows. _There's_ the spinning.

Allison turns back to him. "I look sort of the same if I do this," she says, voice muffled by her hands covering the lower half of her face, hiding the beard from sight. She doesn't, really, but Stiles isn't going to tell her that.

"Why haven't you shaved it off?" he asks.

A deep sigh sounds across the room and Allison drifts back over to the end of the bed. "I tried once. It... it's not the same," she says.

Stiles nods his head in agreement, the cotton of his pillowcase rubbing smooth and cool against his heated cheek. He reaches down the side of the bed and brings up the whiskey bottle, then hauls himself up again and scoots down next to Allison. He takes a quick drink, noting her shocked expression out of the corner of his eyes.

"Here," he says, pushing the bottle at her before she can speak. "We're not werewolves; this totally works on us."

Allison looks back and forth between him and the bottle for a second before taking it. "Everything works on us," she mutters, and takes a quick gulp. She sputters a little when the bottle comes away from her mouth, lips pinching in distaste. Her whole faces squinches up, she shakes her head and sticks her tongue out. "Eurgh!"

Stiles barks a laugh. "Hah! Yep. Everything works on us. Alcohol. Magic spells. Dude, even wolfsbane is poisonous to us. We are fragile beings, my Allison friend." He takes the bottle from her and has another drink. "But your beard looks good. I like it. I like beards, I think," he mumbles.

"Well, I hate it. I thought shaving my legs and pits every day was annoying. How do you put up with this?" She grabs the bottle out of his hand and takes a longer pull this time. Still makes the face after.

"Well — and don't repeat this to anyone — but I probably only really _need_ to shave about once a month. Though, not anymore, I guess," he adds, rubbing his smooth chin. He's never going to grow a beard at this rate. Not that he's ever really wanted a beard on his own face. Like, he can imagine a beard feeling amazing on his face but not, like, _attached_ to his face. _Against_ his face. Would it be soft or scratchy? It would definitely leave marks, but it would feel so nice.

He sighs, runs the hand on his chin up over the side of his face and into his hair that is really starting to get on the too-long side these days. "Hey, I have an idea."

A few minutes later, crowded together in the bathroom, Stiles holds up his electric hair clippers.

"Ummmm. I'm not sure about this." Allison hovers near the doorway, eyes darting between the clippers and Stiles.

"We'll do me first," he assures her.

Allison remains doubtful; she mostly sits back and watches the way Stiles expertly buzzes his own head. It's been months since he's last done this, and he's a little bit uncoordinated at the moment, but muscle memory and years of ritual persist.

"Are you really sure?" she asks him again before what's left of his hair passes the point of no return. But Stiles is sure going back to his old look will make him feel more like himself again. He'd rocked that look for years.

"Yeah," he tells her, grinning. "It'll be great."

It is not great. He makes a mess, for one thing. Stiles _had_ sort of forgotten about the uncontrollable trajectory of falling hair clippings. It's everywhere. His dad is going to have a fit.

And, more importantly, he does not look more like himself.

"I don't look the same," he says, watching himself in the mirror, turning his face this way and that. "Do you think I look the same?" he asks her. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Allison's reflection biting her lip.

He's not bald or anything; he never goes totally bald. It's the same old buzz cut he'd had for nearly six years up until this past summer. It's his face that looks wrong. His cheekbones look higher, finer, and his face even softer and rounder than before. And his eyes are absolutely ridiculous — big and round and framed by long dark lashes, things he'd never paid much attention to before. He looks like one of those pseudo-punk, pixie-cut girls that he kind of used to have a thing for. Only taller, because they are always barely breaking five feet.

He's experiencing some serious haircut remorse, the likes of which he hasn't felt since fourth grade picture day when he stupidly tried to copy Jackson's hairstyle to get Lydia's attention. The haircut that, in fact, precipitated the initial buzz cut. He turns abruptly from the analysis of his own face and focuses all of his attention on Allison, holding the clippers up for her.

"Your turn!"

She jerks away from him. "Stiles, that is not going to work on—on _this_." She tugs at the ends of her beard with her fingertips. "I want it gone. All of it. I want—" Her breath hitches. "I want to look like me again, too."

His hand holding the clippers droops. She's not going to get a close shave with these, he knows. He's not sure she could anyway. There's bound to be stubble no matter what they use.

"When you tried before," he asks, "what did you use?"

"I just did this part," she says, touching one finger to a point high up near her ear. "With a disposable razor. Ended up nicking myself a bunch and gave up."

"Your dad didn't help you?" Stiles remembers his dad teaching him to shave. When he was about eight, Dad gave him a razor with no blade and let him wipe shaving cream off his face, basically. Then he showed Stiles again a few years later for real.

"I couldn't ask him." Allison shrugs, looking away. "It's too weird for him. It's like—" She sighs. "We just lost my mom, and now it's like he's lost me, too."

Stiles wants to tell her that's stupid. He wants to hug her and slap Chris Argent over the head. He does none of these things. Instead, he holds up the clippers again.

"Well, I do know how to do this part. I can buzz that way down, at least. And I've only ever used this on my head, so it's not gross, I promise," Stiles tells her with a confident smile. Her eyes go a little weird, frowning wrinkles forming all around her mouth and between her eyebrows. It's true, though; Stiles is, or was, kind of a hairy guy — below the neck, anyway — and he's never seen the point of manscaping. The maintenance alone must be hell.

"Wait, how drunk are you right now?" Allison asks when he beckons her to sit down on the closed lid of the toilet.

"Please, I'm just a little buzzed." He laughs and rubs a hand over his head. "Get it?"

She just rolls her eyes at him, tucks a towel around her neck like a giant bib, and sits.

They trim Allison's beard as close as Stiles can get it, which actually isn't terribly close at all. Stiles is disappointed in his skills. Allison says she's not confident enough to try the electric razor when he brings it out, and she insists that shaving your face is very different from doing your legs.

"I could," Stiles says, "I mean, I know _how_ , obviously, but I've never actually had to shave a full beard off before. I'd say we could ask my dad, but he won't be home until late tonight."

"It's okay, Stiles," she says, offering a tired smile. "This is a lot better than it was before."

Stiles purses his lips. "There is... one person I can think of. You're not gonna like it."

Allison does not like it. Neither does Derek, but Stiles expected that.

"You want me to what?" Derek demands about ten seconds after Stiles lets him into the house and explains the situation.

"We're teaching Allison to shave!" Stiles repeats, this time with jazz hands.

"On the phone you said this was important." Derek crosses his arms over his chest, glowering.

"This is important, Derek. Do not belittle its importance," Stiles says sternly, poking a finger into Derek's chest. For a fleeting moment, Derek's eyes settle on Allison and a flicker of what looks like shame passes over his face. Then he brings his focus back to Stiles, leans in toward him, and Stiles sucks in a short breath.

"Are you drunk?" Derek asks, eyebrows riding high on his forehead.

Stiles backs up a step so they aren't breathing the same air, and rolls his eyes. "No," he says, putting his hands on his hips. "I _may_ have consumed some alcohol, but I am not drunk."

Derek rolls _his_ eyes then, but they get caught on something mid-roll. He stares at Stiles's head for a full minute. "You—"

"Yes, I did," Stiles cuts him off. "No comments."

"It—"

"If you say it brings out my eyes, Allison will hold you down while I shave _your_ head."

It takes a few more minutes of cajoling, but Derek finally gives in. They have to raid Stiles's dad's bathroom for supplies, but Stiles bought the stuff anyway and he's sure his dad won't mind too much. Allison won't let Derek near her throat with a blade, so he very reluctantly offers to show her on himself.

"No!" Stiles's hand shoots forward and very nearly slaps the razor out of Derek's hand.

They both stare at him, Derek with the furrowed brow and Allison biting her lip to keep from laughing. Stiles feels his face heat up. He scratches at the back of his newly shaved head, and remembers he's going to need to shower soon to get all the tiny itchy hairs off of him.

"I mean," Stiles says, "you shouldn't have to since you obviously don't like shaving it off, right? Right. So!" He claps his hands together. "You can show her on me. Just, like, use my face as a model. Allison can follow instructions." He waves a blithe hand in her direction, keeping his eyes locked on Derek and feeling the mad grin on his face.

Derek continues to stare. "You probably could've just looked up a video on YouTube for this, you know," he says, but he's already moving toward the sink to get started. He instructs Allison on how to use the hot water to open up her pores, how to spread the shaving cream across her chin and cheeks and down her neck, and which direction to drag the blade, all using Stiles's face as an example. He's basically doing the same thing Stiles had done the first time his dad showed him how to shave, swiping through the shaving cream without really having much effect. Except this is very, _very_ different. Stiles holds very still while Derek tips his head back, holds his breath at the touch of Derek's fingertips on his bare skin, closes his eyes when Derek leans in close to inspect him.

If he were himself and still had his junk, Stiles would be having a very embarrassing pants situation right now. _'Score one for girl parts!'_ he thinks a little hysterically. It's great being able to walk around not announcing that to the world. Although, he realizes a second later, werewolves can probably smell it anyway. If that's true, Derek gives no indication. He finishes up quickly and efficiently, and checks to see that Allison's got it.

After they clean up the bathroom, and Stiles rinses off quickly in the shower, Allison goes back to closely examining her face in the mirror in Stiles's bedroom. She can't seem to stop touching her newly bared skin. She even turns, looks directly at Derek, and says, "Thanks," so sincerely Stiles thinks he might see tears in her eyes.

Derek shifts his weight, looking uncomfortable standing in the doorway with his hands stuffed into his pockets. "You're going to have to do it again tomorrow. Morning, probably," he eventually says.

Allison just laughs, short and loud. "It's not perfect, but I'll get better with practice." She'd only cut herself twice. "There's still some stubble. I wonder how much foundation it would take to cover," she murmurs mostly to herself.

Spinning around in his desk chair, Stiles stops abruptly to face her. "I have another idea," he says with a wide smile. "Do you trust me?"

Both Allison and Derek look back at him with matching skeptical faces.

"Oh, come on! It doesn't involve traipsing through the woods or breaking into the school or fangs or claws or weapons of any kind. Or breaking the law." He pauses and reconsiders. "Actually there will be a little bit of law-breaking."

 

* * *

 

"It's just up here, yeah, right past the dry cleaners," Stiles directs from the passenger seat of Derek's car, while simultaneously texting. From the backseat, Allison leans forward so she can get a better look out the windshield. "It's cool, you can pull in here," he says, pointing out the small alleyway behind a brick building.

Derek parks his car, peering at the building suspiciously. Stiles slaps him on the arm, sending one last text then climbing out of the car. Allison hurries to follow, but Derek takes his time, his moves more deliberate. He stands in the open driver's side door, watching them over the roof of the car.

"Dude, relax. Your car will be fine; this neighborhood isn't that bad," says Stiles.

"I know that. My building is just over there," Derek replies, pointing beyond the mouth of the alley.

"Oh yeah." Stiles looks that way, like he can see through all the walls separating them and right into Derek's loft. He always forgets that Derek doesn't live outside of reality. He's just a guy, with a degree and a marketing plan. "How's the gentrification going anyway?"

"Great," Derek answers, deadpan stare intact.

"Stiles?" Allison stands close to him, holding her jacket closed tight around her body.

"Right, yes, come on!" Stiles puts his hand around her elbow and marches to the closed door at the back of the building. "This is gonna be great! They're so excited to meet you!" Behind them, Derek finally closes his car door and makes his way over.

Stiles knocks out a little rhythm on the door, bouncing on the balls of his feet. A moment later, it swings open to reveal a bright purple kimono wrapped around a tall, but slender frame.

"Honey!" Stiles smiles wide in greeting.

"Chicken, you're early. I haven't got my face on yet!" A complete lie; Honey looks perfectly made up as always. Anyway, Stiles knows by now that he'll always be early until the moment he's late; that's just how this goes. Honey's eyes roam from Allison then over their shoulders to Derek. "And you've brought me two gorgeous men. I didn't know I could get delivery."

"Actually." Stiles steps to the side and sweeps his hand over Allison like he's revealing a magic trick. "This is the one I was telling you about. This is Allison, and she wants you to help make her into the beautiful woman we all know she is."

"Well," says Honey, reaching out to cup Allison's chin in one manicured hand. "You've certainly got bone structure to die for. Shirl!" she calls over her shoulder into the darkened apartment, "I hope you're decent, they're heeeerrrrre!"

Without warning, Honey takes Allison by the hand and pulls her inside. Stiles follows. The place is a swirl of colors, so much that Stiles can't even pick one thing to focus on. Draperies in blinding orange, blood red shag rug in the middle of the room like the scene of a crime. Purple and blue table lamps. Candles everywhere. _Obscene_ candles in rainbow wax. Stiles loves it.

Shirley joins them and immediately takes Allison's other hand to inspect her more closely. Allison stands up straight, lifting her chin high, but still manages to smile shyly.

"Allison," Stiles says, stepping up to stand beside her, "I'd like you to meet Miss Honey Do and Shirley Ugest."

"Yes, yes, this we can work with," says Shirley, twirling Allison's long ponytail around her fingers. She is fully made up already, but only wearing half a dress at this point. Stiles can see Allison taking it all in and doing her best not to stare. Or maybe she's just overwhelmed by the whole thing.

"They're the best. You're in good hands, I promise." Stiles pats her on the shoulder as Honey pulls her away.

"Come, my darling, you're going to be _fabulous_!" Honey disappears through a bead-curtained doorway with Allison in tow.

Shirley turns to Stiles then. "Babyface," she sings, patting his cheeks with both hands. He closes his eyes to protect them from her long, peacock-colored fingernails. "You haven't come to see us in a while. Oh, and you brought us a present?" she coos, looking past him toward the still open door. Stiles glances back.

"Oh, that's just Derek. He's our driver," Stiles adds, smirking at Derek's frowning face.

" _Derrrrek_ , is it?" Shirley arches an eyebrow at them both. Stiles flushes and whips his face back around so Derek can't see it.

"Shirl! You are _needed_!" Honey calls from the other room.

"My work is never done." She fluffs her hair (Or is it a wig? Stiles can never tell.) and turns away, stopping only to say, "Do come in, please, and make yourselves at home, boys. This is going to take a while."

Stiles plops onto the paisley sofa and looks up at Derek still hovering by the door. After a second, Derek closes the door and comes further into the room. He looks a little lost.

"What, you think I don't know people who aren't werewolves or werewolf adjacent?" asks Stiles.

"No, that's not—" Derek watches the doorway out of the side of his eyes. "How... Never mind. This is pretty ordinary, all things considered." He releases a short sigh and his whole body seems to loosen. It's a good look on him. He gingerly sits on the sofa next to Stiles. "This is a nice thing you did for her," he says softly.

Stiles blinks at him in surprise. He wasn't really sure what Derek would think of all this, wasn't sure he'd have any kind of reaction at all. It's not like Stiles had been planning this; the idea just sort of popped into his head. He was still tipsy at the time, which is why Derek came with them at all since neither Stiles nor Allison were fit to drive right away.

"If anyone can help her feel more like herself…" Stiles shrugs, letting his sentence taper into optimism. He can't put her back the way she was, but he hopes Allison has fun with this tonight.

"So, she gets all dressed up," asks Derek, "then what?"

A slow smirk spreads across Stiles's lips.

 

* * *

 

The Jungle isn't too crowded for a Saturday night, but it is spring break and there are still plenty of people. Allison looks great! He'd hardly recognized her when Honey and Shirley did their big reveal. They did her hair up in a style he'd never seen Allison try before — namely, big — and the makeup made her eyes and features pop. (Stiles realized that's why her eyes have looked so much smaller these days, and he wondered if he'd ever seen Allison without makeup before all this. He'd just never really noticed that she was wearing any.)

Her borrowed gown glitters under the lights, all red and gold, and she seems to be having a blast. She looks much freer than that night they'd gone to the club with Lydia and the others, and Allison was dancing with her as a man. Tonight, she gets to be herself again.

Stiles feels pretty good right now. Watching her enjoy herself, uninhibited for the first time in months, maybe the first time in a year, he can almost forget they're stuck like this. Almost.

Derek seems to think he's there in a chaperone capacity. Even if Stiles could get the bartender to serve him something other than soda, Derek would just intercept. Stiles is honestly surprised Derek has stayed this long. His face gives no indication that he's anything other than bored. Stiles was right before; the Hale siblings' facial expressions are eerily similar.

"You could go dance, you know," Stiles says to him just loud enough for Derek to hear over the music.

Derek rolls his head lazily to look at Stiles, one eyebrow arched. "And leave you here alone?"

"I'm good on my own," Stiles says, even though he hadn't really considered having to stand here by himself. Sidelined again. He'd be fine, of course, but it's not like he _wants_ Derek to leave him. "Seriously, you can dance if you want to," he says anyway. Then he gets a gleam in his eye. "You can leave your friends behind—"

"Do not," Derek interrupts him, "sing _Safety Dance_ at me." He points a finger and Stiles laughs. "Why aren't you out there? This is your night, too, right?" he asks then, moving closer so Stiles can hear him a little better.

"And leave you here alone?" he shoots back, smirking. Derek rolls his eyes, but his smile looks almost fond. Stiles shrugs, takes a sip of his Coke. "Eh, this was more for Allison. I've been—I've been okay. Myself, more than she's been able, you know?" He meets Derek's eye and is grateful that Derek doesn't call him out on the lies. "So, um, so how are things with that other alpha, anyway? I mean, like, are you, um, are you going with them? Are you, you know, part of that pack now?"

He fiddles with the straw in his soda, glancing up only briefly, waiting for Derek to say something. To hopefully not call him out on the nervous flutter in his chest, either.

Derek doesn't say anything for a full minute, then finally, "Satomi is a good alpha. She's fair, and loyal, and strong. Smart, too. She wouldn't be cleaning up this town's messes if there was no advantage for her own pack."

"Oh. So…" _What does that mean?_ What's the advantage? Is she gaining the remaining Hales for her pack, is that it?

"I think Scott's learning a lot from her," Derek says, head down now with his eyes on the floor. "He's going to be able to handle this on his own."

 _'But what about you?'_ Stiles doesn't get the chance to say because Allison comes tumbling into him, clutching onto his shoulder.

"Why are you hiding over here?" she calls, tugging on his arm. "Come on. Shirley's teaching me how to cha-cha!" Stiles tries to resist, but Allison is much stronger than him. Derek doesn't help, plucking the glass out of Stiles's hand and pushing him out into the crush of people.

"Go," he says, leaning back against the bar with Stiles's soda. "Enjoy it."

He gives in, trailing after Allison using their joined hands as a leash to keep them connected amidst the crowd. They reach a spot that Allison deems right, and she turns to Stiles, placing one of his hands on her waist and clasping the other in a dance pose.

"I really don't know how to do any dances that have actual steps," he tells her, hoping she hears over the music. She was already taller than him, but now she's wearing heels. He's about eye-level with her chin.

"Isaac called," she says loudly, bending close to his ear.

"Oh, yeah? And?" He blows a curl of her hair out of his face.

"I told him I'd talk to him tomorrow," she says, pulling back enough that he can see her wide smile, dimples no longer hidden beneath the dark beard. "I'm having way too much fun now."

"Good!"

"Thank you, Stiles. This was a great idea. I mean, I don't... I don't look like me," she says, one hand flitting over her big hair and dramatic makeup. "But I don't look like a man, either. I haven't felt this good in... in months."

"I'm glad," Stiles says, smiling back. "And either way, you're definitely the prettiest man I've ever met."

She raises an eyebrow at him. "Oh really?" She looks over at the bar, then back to him.

Stiles turns his head to look, too, and sees Derek there. Leaning. Watching them. Stiles feels his face heat and his heart speed up.

Allison leans close to say directly into his ear, "You should have some fun, too, you know?"

"Oh, shut up," he says, with a choked breath.

"But you 'think you like beards,' remember? You told me!"

"Oh my god," he groans, "shut up!" Stiles hides his face in Allison's neck, and squeezes her hand while she laughs at him.

 

* * *

 

Derek drops them off at Stiles's house, but elects not to see them to the door when it's evident that the sheriff is home. Probably a good thing, since he gives both Stiles and Allison the hairy eyeball when they fall into the front door, giggling into each other's shoulders.

"I sent you a text!" Stiles protests preemptively, glad now that he wasn't allowed any alcohol at the club. Allison's not so lucky. Or, she was luckier at the club. Whatever, she's a little tipsy is what he means.

"I got it," his dad says, arms folded in front of him. "It's still after midnight, and I'm still your father and the sheriff; it's my prerogative to worry."

Stiles smiles widely at him. "You're a good dad."

"I am." He nods back to Stiles, then shifts his gaze. "You look very lovely, Allison."

She blushes deeply, averting her eyes, all flustered. "Thank you, Sheriff Stilinski." She smooths her dress down and tucks her messy curls behind her ear. "It's not really my style, but it was fun for tonight."

"I can see that." He nods at both of them, a tiny twitch playing at his lips. "I told Chris you were staying the night here. He seemed fine with that."

"Oh," she says, looking up at him. "Thanks. Again." She tucks her chin and gathers her hair up with both hands, twisting it around her fingers.

"Stiles can find you something to sleep in," he says, herding them toward the stairs. "I'll make up the couch."

"Aw, Dad, you know the couch is so uncomfortable. You complain about your back every time you fall asleep in front of the TV," says Stiles. "Allison can just crash in my room. If, uh, it's okay with her, I mean," he adds, looking to Allison.

She glances back and forth between them, wide-eyed. "Anywhere's fine, really."

After a very long, narrow-eyed look at the two of them, his dad says, "Stiles is right, this couch is murder. I'm sure he wouldn't mind letting you have his bed, Allison." Stiles squawks at that, but his dad just shoos them up the stairs. "Good night."

"Night, Dad!" Stiles calls over his shoulder, following Allison quickly up the stairs. He finds her some sweatpants and a t-shirt, letting her have the bathroom first so she can wash up. Stiles changes into his own pajamas while she's in there.

He can't keep from running his hand over his shaved head, calculating how long it took him last time to grow his hair out to a decent length. It was at least a few months before it stopped sticking straight out as if he'd been electrocuted.

Stiles is rolling his sleeping bag out on the floor when Allison comes back in. Her hair is damp and flattened, pulled back into her favored ponytail. Her face looks scrubbed clean but for the smudgy darkness around her eyes.

"You have nothing for cleaning off makeup," she says, wiping one finger underneath her left eye.

"Sorry," he replies with a half-hearted shrug. He wouldn't even know what sort of stuff she'd need for that. Does regular soap not work? "I got you some clean sheets and a spare pillow." He points these out on the bed, grabbing his own pillow for himself. "Sorry we don't have a guestroom. I mean, technically we do, it just doesn't have a bed in it and it's been full of junk since... um, for years."

She gives him a soft, sympathetic smile. "This is fine."

Together they get the bed made up. Once Allison settles in, Stiles shuts the light off and dives for his sleeping bag. It's agonizingly quiet in his room all of a sudden, the only noises their combined breathing and the occasional rustle of sheets. Stiles lies flat on his back for a while, but rolls onto one side then the other to find a comfortable position.

"Stiles?" Allison whispers above him.

"Yeah?" he whispers back, holding himself still. "You good?"

"Do you still have trouble sleeping?"

"Sometimes. You?" He squints in the darkness at the edge of the mattress, picturing Allison lying there stiff as a board.

She doesn't answer for a while, then finally her head appears over the side of the bed, peering down at him. "Do you want to come up here?" she asks softly.

Stiles thinks about it for a second. "Yeah, okay."

He wriggles out of his sleeping back and grabs his pillow. Allison's already sliding over and holding the covers up for him when he stands up. He shimmies in next to her, fluffs up his pillow, and tries to settle down. He's super glad he talked his dad into replacing his old twin bed with a full-sized one last summer.

They continue to lie there, silent and motionless, for endless moments. Stiles had thought all of his self-consciousness had been used up already. Especially around Allison, of all people. But nope.

"Do you—" Allison breaks the silence, but stops short like maybe she hadn't meant to or is having second thoughts about it. Stiles hears her inhale deeply and let it all out. "Do you think this means something? That this happened to us?"

"What, like karma, or a higher power in the universe trying to tell us something?" he asks, turning his head just enough to see her profile next to him. "No. No, I don't think there's a reason. I don't think we're supposed to be learning some great lesson here. Except that magic is bad, obviously."

"I feel like we should tell people about this spell. You know, people who actually want..." Allison trails off. "Except, we don't even know how we ended up with this. What if it doesn't do the same thing to everyone? Why would it only happen to us?"

"Shit happens," Stiles says, reiterating his point, "and an unusual amount and variety of shit just so happens to happen here. That's all this is, Allison."

"I can't decide if that's better or worse," she says. "I do have nightmares. Some nights. I can't remember when they started. If it was before or after. Maybe you were right, and it's not the Nemeton's influence, but Deaton said it would change us. Maybe that darkness in us is just fear," she finishes quietly, her voice tapering off into the darkness.

The ensuing silence is heavy, near suffocating. Fear and anxiety have ridden shotgun throughout most of Stiles's whole life. Shaking that away, he blows a breath out.

"Honestly, I think Deaton likes to screw with our heads sometimes just to see what'll happen," he says. He hears Allison's breathy chuckle next to him, and the tension seems to melt away.

"Do you think Scott's going to be okay?" she asks a moment later.

"You mean with the alpha stuff? Yeah. Yeah, I do." He's had his doubts in the past, and nobody could blame him for that, but he really feels like Scott's got this now. "Derek seems to think so, anyway."

"Oh, well, if Derek thinks so." She doesn't sound quite as scathing as she probably once would have only a few weeks ago.

"You don't?" Stiles asks.

"I don't know." Another one of those long exhales follow. "I just keep thinking, if it was me I wouldn't know what to do."

"I'd say you're doing all right," Stiles tells her, nudging her with his shoulder. "You know, on the other side of things. Maybe between the two of you, we can even get hunters and werewolves working on the same team and actually protecting people."

"Hunters and werewolves and law enforcement," she says, nudging him back.

"Yeah. Shit, I filled my dad in on the new sitch and now I'm not sure if he's suspicious of Parrish or if he wants to adopt him." Allison chuckles, shaking the bed a little. "I'm a very comfortable only child, okay? I've gotten used to a certain level of attention that I'm not willing to share."

Allison laughs harder at this. "I think Shirley wants to adopt you," she says, "you know, if you need options."

"Yeah, she's said as much on previous occasions."

He feels Allison shift around on the bed to face toward him. "How many previous occasions have there been?"

"Some." He shrugs, not looking at her. "A few. I felt bad after Lydia's birthday party last year. I invited them and then everyone ended up trippin' balls on Lydia's 'special punch' — explaining that was fun, by the way."

"I can imagine."

"Anyway. I went to apologize to the girls and—" He rolls onto his side so he can face Allison. "—we kinda just hung out a bit, and I've been keeping in touch with them ever since."

"Huh," she says, her eyes cast down so that all Stiles can make out is a smudge of dark lashes against her pale skin.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing, really. It's just..." She pauses, biting her lip. "I don't really have any friends outside of... of you guys. I've never been great at making friends. We've never stayed anywhere long enough, you know? It always seemed like, as soon as I had a group to sit with at lunch we were packing up and heading to the next new town, the next new school. I'm glad Lydia decided not to have a huge birthday party this year. Going out to that club, just us, was better."

"Yeah. Wait, was that supposed to be for Lydia's birthday?" Stiles hisses. "Shit. I didn't even get her a card this year."

"I think she'll understand."

"This is Lydia. She's probably pissed, but she feels too sorry for me right now to say anything." Stiles squirms in place, stomach twisting into knots. "You think if I let her dress me up like a doll now she'll forgive me?" Allison's eyebrows shoot up. "What? You looked like you had fun with it."

"If you'd wanted to, I'm sure Shirley and Honey would have been delighted."

"Oh, they asked. I said maybe next time."

Allison shoves his shoulder, both of them giggling now.

"It did look fun, though," Stiles tells her. "Watching you out there. You made it look fun. And a lot of guys were checking you out."

"Yeah," she says, tucking her hair back, a gesture Stiles now knows is a nervous habit. "But were they checking me out because I looked female? Or because they knew I... wasn't."

Stiles watches her for a moment; she only glances up at him once. "Does it matter?" he asks.

"Maybe it shouldn't," Allison says. She hunches down into the covers, face half buried in her pillow. "But it does. To me."

Stiles scrunches down into the covers, too, and lowers his voice to even more of a whisper. "But, with Isaac..."

"He liked me before," she answers, somehow knowing the question he couldn't quite ask. "It wasn't—it wasn't like I was a guy with another guy. With him I was just Allison."

Stiles wants to ask about the sex, the what's and the how's. How did they figure it out? Did it feel as natural as it had for Allison when she was in a female body? Was Isaac at all uncertain? Is she really just Allison to him no matter what, or is he attracted to her male body, too? Stiles is burning with curiosity, but he knows asking these things would maybe be a step too far; their friendship is still relatively new.

Instead, he goes in another direction.

"Can I ask you for a weird favor?" he whispers, and Allison nods, eyebrows raised.

Asking Allison to... basically spoon him _for science_ is a whole new level of mortification, but she says yes with minimal laughter. "I just want to see what it feels like," he explains with his back now to her and his flaming face mashed into his pillow.

She slides her arm around his middle, holding him close to her chest (while keeping her lower half a good few inches from touching him to save them both further embarrassment, no doubt). It takes a couple minutes, but Stiles's body finally relaxes into her embrace.

"Oh man," he says, feeling like a dam has burst in his chest. "I like guys _so much_."

Allison huffs a breath in his ear. "This is a revelation to you?"

"No." Stiles shivers at the sensation. "Kind of. I mean, yeah, I find guys attractive, but I thought maybe it was just, like, aesthetics, you know? I didn't know I'd want this so badly," he says, still whispering and barely audible, like if nobody hears it then it's not really a confession. He lets himself melt even further into the warmth surrounding him.

She finds his hand and curls her fingers around his. He can feel her chin on the back of his neck, already starting to prickle with the beginnings of new stubble. Stiles shivers again. He knew that would feel nice.

"Not—not that I want you," he backtracks, freezing up in her arms. "Not that you aren't super hot, because you totally are, but... you're Allison." 

"Relax, Stiles," she murmurs, her breath warm on his skin. "I understand how good it feels. I imagine you're pretending I'm someone else right now, anyway, hm?" He can hear the smile in her voice.

"What? No," he squeaks. "I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about." He presses his face deeper into his pillow, but a second later he tries to see if he can glimpse her over his shoulder. "Why, are you?"

"Well, I don't want you, either, Stiles. Sorry." Definitely smiling now.

"No, no, that's fair." He snuggles back into his pillow, her chest firm against his shoulder blades. "Isaac, though? Really? Ow!" He clutches his ribs where she just jabbed him with her thumb. The bed shakes with their combined laughter.

 

* * *

 

Allison leaves early the next morning, saying she needs to have a conversation with her dad. She's clearly dreading the encounter, but she's Allison so she doesn't dawdle or try to stall.

Unlike Stiles, who goes back to sleep for a few more hours. He hasn't told his own dad about Lydia's news yet, either, even though he promised to keep him updated. When he finally gets out of bed, instead of heading down for some breakfast, or more accurately lunch, he takes a long, hot shower and pointedly doesn't think about anything at all. Afterward, lingering in his bedroom, he thinks he _could_ tell his dad now. He should. He's right downstairs, which is why Stiles locked his bedroom door. Dad's pretty good about knocking, past incidents having hammered that lesson home hard, but one can never be too careful when one is standing in front of a full length mirror and examining one's female-looking body. Naked.

The high of the night before has fully worn off.

Stiles is not sure how he feels about still being so hairy. Not that he thought girls were automatically smooth and hairless, but he's always been a little embarrassed about his patchy chest hair and fuzzy ass. He'd figured girls probably didn't like hairy guys. He hadn't given much consideration to what guys might think. Hadn't given too much thought to what he himself would like, either, but having seen Derek's chest hair recently, he thinks he might be in favor.

Stiles's chest now is bare of the coarse, dark hairs he was getting used to, but his pubes are seriously out of control, a sprawling mess of a wiry patch. Completely untamed. His legs are about the same as they were before, covered in fine, dark hair. He's not planning on touching those. He'd shaved his armpits once a few years ago out of curiosity and the itching afterward drove him crazy. Overall, he's still pretty hairy. He guesses he's happy about that, really. Maybe it's dumb, maybe it's even a little sexist, he doesn't care, it makes him feel more manly.

If he squints and kind of just peers through the blurry filter of his eyelashes, he maybe… sort of… a little bit… looks like a guy?

His shoulders slump. Without his layers of clothes, without the binder, without hiding every aspect of this body... No, not _this_ body. _His_ body. His girl body. This is what he has now, he'd better get fucking used to it.

The thick thatch of hair between his legs mocks him. He can cover his chest up all he wants, but that's still... still...

Stiles falls onto his bed naked and curls up as small as possible, hugging his knees to his chest. He spends a few minutes regulating his breathing, ignoring the trickle leaking from the corner of his eye and slipping across his cheek.

Deep breaths. He stretches his legs out first, until his toes extend beyond the edge of the bed, and rolls onto his stomach, reaching both arms out from his sides. Lying face down feels strange with no pressure or friction on his cock. He's been doing his best not to think about it, how wrong the absence of that heaviness between his legs feels. He'd even tried stuffing rolled up socks down his pants for looks, but it still hadn't felt right.

He rolls off the bed and gets to his feet, standing tall to view himself in the mirror again. His eyes are drawn inevitably down to the unruly patch of dark hair. He cups both hands over it, but that smooshes his boobs together, as small as they are, giving him cleavage he doesn't want. He tries one-handed, letting the other dangle at his side.

He can't fool himself. The rest of his body is still the wrong shape. His hips flare out from his waist, curving gently into more rounded thighs and ass. He's never really had a six-pack, but his stomach, while still flat, looks so much softer now. His nipples are larger, as well, and it's probably just his imagination, but it looks like the swell of flesh beneath them is bigger, rounder than even the last time he looked.

Stepping back to get a view of a different angle, Stiles bangs his shin into the side of his bed. It doesn't hurt, but he nearly topples over trying to rebalance. It knocks his bed askew, and something underneath catches his eye.

His breath catches, as well, a thought slowly taking shape. He glances around himself, checking he's really alone, before bending and pulling the box out from under his bed. He'd only opened it the once, just to see what it looked like, feel it in his hand, but he'd put it right back in its box and it's been there under his bed ever since.

Now, Stiles dumps the contents onto his bed, plucks the dildo up, curling his hand around it, assessing its weight and flexibility. It doesn't look realistic in the slightest. He could've gone for a flesh colored one, but _noooo_ , he'd thought the neon ones were _hilarious_.

Nestled in his pubic hair, but very carefully not really quite touching himself, he holds it one-handed at a good angle. It's bigger than him, than he was, he thinks, but not by too much. Again, if he squints, and ignores the jarring color, he can almost pretend.

He actually sees a flicker in the mirror a fraction of a second before he hears his window slide open, but it's not nearly enough time to do anything before a werewolf appears in his bedroom. Derek freezes with one foot in midair.

"Oh my god!" Stiles screeches, limbs flailing and dildo flying across the room. It crashes onto his desk sending papers and pens scattering.

"Oh. Shit." Derek whirls around back toward the window, but his feet get tangled up and he winds up leaning heavily into the wall. "Fuck. Sorry."

"What are you _doing_?!" Stiles scrabbles for the blankets on his bed, trying to cover himself.

"Sorry! I'm sor—I—" Derek stutters to a stop. Stiles swears the tips of his ears are glowing alpha red. "Allison left her jacket in my car," Derek says, and only then does Stiles notice his arm extended with the garment dangling from his fingers. "I didn't think dropping it off at her house would be a good idea."

Still catching his breath, heart racing, Stiles clutches the blanket to his chest. "Uh, good plan. You just missed her. Well not really, she left this morning." Derek's still facing away from him, holding the jacket out. "You can just leave it on the chair there," Stiles tells him.

Derek side-steps without looking and drapes it over the back of the desk chair. He half turns then but seems to think better of it, keeping his face and eyes averted. "I thought she was seeing Isaac now?" he asks Stiles's bedroom wall.

"She is. I guess. They have a thing, or something. I don't really know what's going on there. Not sure they do, either." This time Derek's head turns the other direction, and he looks over his shoulder pointedly at the rumpled bed. "Oh my god, she just slept here." Stiles drops his hands, and the blanket, down from his chest to perch on his hips.

"Okay," says Derek, like he hadn't just accused Stiles of... of something.

"Why are you sneaking in through my window anyway?"

"Your dad is downstairs." Derek starts to turn his body fully, but stops again and looks away.

"So? You could've just knocked, he'd have let you in," Stiles tells him, trying to get a glimpse of his face. From Derek's profile, it looks like he doesn't believe that.

"Are you going to put some clothes on?"

"That's rich, coming from you." Stiles snorts. "Don't tell me Sir Strips-A-Lot is secretly a prude."

"I'm not a pru—What are you doing?!" Derek's voice reaches new heights. He claps one hand over his eyes and actually backs up as Stiles tosses his blanket back onto the bed.

"Seriously, just look. It's nothing you haven't seen before."

"Not on you, I haven't," Derek says, voice strained and hand still covering his eyes.

"Oh, get over it. Stop being a baby and wolf up." Stiles stands with his hands on his hips, projecting as much calm confidence as he can muster. "Jeez, I can't be that repulsive," he spits out to hide the tremor.

Derek sighs, a long release of air, almost a groan. He lowers his hand and opens his eyes, but appears to be keeping them very studiously above Stiles's neck. "Fine. What am I supposed to be looking for?"

"You've seen girls naked. Well, women probably, whatever." Stiles shrugs, and redistributes his weight, fighting the urge to cover himself up again. "So?"

"So what?" Derek asks, resignation in his voice, but he's still not looking directly at Stiles's body.

"So, you know, how do I measure up?" he asks. "Since I'm stuck with this now, I should make the most of it, right?" He closes his eyes, embarrassed by the evidence of tears in his own voice.

"You're not a girl, Stiles."

His breath hitches, and he blinks up at Derek. "What?"

"This is—" Derek sighs. "Whatever you idiots did to yourselves—"

"Hey!" he protests automatically, but is fully expecting the look he gets from Derek, all _'tell me I'm wrong about that, please try it.'_

"Whatever this is," Derek continues, "it doesn't change you. It doesn't change who you are or who you want to be. No matter what happens."

Giving in, Stiles wraps his arms around himself, one hand dropping down to cover his crotch area. "I don't look different to you?"

Derek moves then, coming toward him. He reaches down, grabs the blanket from the bed, and carefully drapes it around Stiles's shoulders. "You look like Stiles," he says, hands still clasped in the blanket, holding it closed at Stiles's chest.

"I don't feel like Stiles," he whispers, looking down at Derek's hands. "Have you—have you ever... never mind. The answer is obvious."

"What?" Derek asks, tugging him over to sit on the bed. He tucks the blanket all around Stiles, sitting down next to him.

"Have you ever not felt comfortable—not right in your own body?" He expects Derek to say 'of course not,' and to look at him like he's cracked.

"Yes," Derek answers without hesitation, and Stiles is the one surprised. "After—" Derek pauses, licks his lower lip. "I know that Peter told you about… Paige. Cora told me." Stiles winces, but Derek doesn't seem to notice, just keeps talking. "After that, I didn't shift at all. For months, nearly a year, I refused. That was when I mastered my control."

Shaking his head, Stiles looks over at him. "Why?"

"I didn't want to be reminded of what I was, what I was capable of. What I did to her." He closes his eyes, and Stiles figures he must've hated that cool blue, as well, every time he saw it.

"It wasn't—" Stiles stops, knowing with certainty that telling Derek it wasn't his fault won't change anything, especially how he feels. He backtracks, and takes a different route. "But you're always all _'The bite is a gift. Go, werewolves, go!'_ I thought... I don't know, I guess I thought that was always how you felt."

"It is a gift," Derek avows, then sighs. "It can be. I've seen it do miraculous things, save lives. But I didn't think so then. Not for a long time. Not even my mother could talk to me about it."

"What changed? What happened?"

"Kate," he says, succinctly. Stiles doesn't get how what happened with _her_ could change how Derek felt. His confusion must show on his face, for Derek says, "I didn't tell Paige. I didn't trust when I should have."

"You told Kate," Stiles surmises, and Derek nods tersely.

"I wished... I wished I was different. To be human, maybe. Safe, at least." Somehow Stiles knows that Derek isn't talking about his own safety; he means safe for others to be around. "But Kate acted like it was amazing. Made me believe I was impressive and special." A tiny, humorless laugh escapes Derek. "I realized, after, that she already knew about me, and she played me, made me believe she was my confidante. I shifted for her, to show off. She said the blue of my eyes was beautiful."

He closes those eyes again, chin practically down on his chest, and Stiles can only stare at his profile. From the thick eyebrow, past the sweep of his eyelashes, the point of his nose, down the sharp contours of his cheekbone and all the way to the thin line of his mouth.

"Did she know?" Stiles asks. "What it meant?"

"I've thought about that," Derek says, opening his eyes and lifting his head. "It's supposed to be a well-guarded secret, but I wouldn't be surprised if they'd discovered it. To them, torture is an art form."

Stiles snakes his hands out of the blanket wrapped tightly around him, and tucks it neatly under his armpits. Cautiously, he reaches over to lay his hand on top of Derek's and very gently curl his fingers around it. "I don't think it would've made a difference, either way," he says. "Not to someone like her."

"No, probably not." Derek moves his hand and Stiles starts to pull his away, but Derek catches his fingers and tugs it back. "I've tried since… since then to become more comfortable with myself, with who and what I am. I guess I'm still working on it." He gives a soft, warm, knowing look then, and cradles Stiles's hand in his, thumb rubbing across his skin. Stiles watches that little movement, it's hypnotizing.

"God, I never realized my hands were so small," he says. They are. They're _tiny_ compared to Derek's, completely engulfed in his palms. Stiles's attention hasn't been drawn to this difference until now: These hands are so much smaller than his hands should be. These are not his hands. His breath hitches, voice wobbling. "I can't—I can't stay like this, Derek. This body is _weird_ and it's not mine and I know I made jokes before but it was actually disgusting. I can't go through that every month for the rest of my life. I can't. I can't."

Before the panic sets in, before his throat stops working and his lungs start to burn, Stiles finds himself wrapped up in Derek's arms. He leans his head against Derek's chest and just breathes. He lets himself be held, relishing this contact. No offense to her, but Allison's arms pale in comparison to this magnificence.

"We'll keep looking," Derek tells him, squeezing his arm.

"Lydia said—"

"I know what she said. But any magic that is done can be undone. There has to be a way."

"What if there's not?" Stiles sniffs, leaning back out of Derek's embrace to look him in the eye. "Or what if it takes years? What if it takes our whole lives?" He stands then, securing the blanket around him, and moves over to his desk. "I've been looking stuff up. It was, well, it was mainly for Allison to start out with. Ways she could, you know, be more herself. But I also found lots of stuff on, uh…" He finds the papers he's looking for and turns back to Derek. "On transitioning? People do it all the time."

"They do," Derek agrees, sounding too careful. "That's not an easy thing."

"I think we're past looking for the easy fix, don't you?" Stiles says, waving his stack of printouts with one hand and, he suddenly realizes, the dildo in the other because he'd had to move it to get the papers. Derek's eyes seem to be tracking the flopping movements of that against his will, and Stiles shoves his hand behind his back to hide it.

"They have things, y'know," Derek says, a look on his face like he's not sure he meant to be speaking right now. "You stuff them in your—so it looks like you have, like your—is still there."

Stiles stares at him, both hands dropping to his sides. "Are you actually incapable of saying the word penis?"

Derek rolls his eyes and stands up from the bed. "They're more realistic than that," he says, gesturing toward Stiles's lowered hand. "Why do you even—No." He waves his hand in the air, like he's swiping that question out of existence. "Not that. Why _neon green_?"

Stiles holds the dildo up in front of him, watching the head wobble back and forth. "It glows in the dark."

Derek pinches the bridge of his nose. "Of course it does."

He walks around Derek, back over to the bed so he can drop the dildo back into its box and shove it back under the bed. Stiles is too focused right now to even be embarrassed about it anymore. He spreads his papers over the bed and hikes up his blanket toga so he can sit.

"I know it won't be easy," Stiles says. He's lived his whole life in a town where everyone knows him as the sheriff's _son_. That has made it infinitely easier to avoid notice so far, he knows. Nobody has stopped him, questioned him, or so much as looked at him funny. No more than they would have before, anyway. He also knows it won't be the same out there in the world. He's learned to hold it while he's at school so he doesn't have to go into the bathrooms. He won't be able to hold it for the rest of his life.

The rest of his life is not going to be _easy_.

"I've done a lot of reading about this. I tried not to, I tried putting it off, but I just couldn't stop myself. It's like all along I knew," he says, looking up at Derek. "So, I've done my research. Like, I've done _a lot_ of research. I've learned more about vaginas than I _ever_. Wanted. To know."

Derek makes a soft sound, almost like a laugh, his mouth twitching into what might be a smile. He comes over to the bed and Stiles makes space for him, moving the pages out of his way.

"Like, did you know," Stiles says, "there's an entire subculture of mythology about how the vagina can grow teeth?"

"Vagina dentata," says Derek, and Stiles double-takes.

"What? How do you even know that?!"

"House. Full. Of women." Derek leans in with emphasis. "The only male company I had was basically Uncle Peter." Stiles shudders at the prospect. "Also, I went to a university, Stiles. I did learn things. And there's technically a real medical condition that that myth stems from."

"Yeah, I read about that, too," Stiles says, still perhaps a little awed at having this conversation with Derek, but now also overwhelmed by everything. "There are a lot of medical conditions. _A lot_."

Staring at his amassed research, Stiles runs his fingers over his head, wishing he still had hair at the moment because there's something therapeutic about gripping a fistful of it and tugging until it burns.

"Hey," Derek say, taking one of Stiles's hands in his and gently tugging it away from digging trenches into his own scalp. "Just breathe. One thing at a time. You're not alone in this, Stiles. Okay?"

He clutches onto Derek's hand and breathes, in and out, slow and steadying. He turns his attention to Derek, studying him for a long moment.

"When did you get good at stuff?" Stiles asks.

Derek lets out a soft laugh then. An actual laugh. And a smile. "When I stopped trying to be something I'm not. It's been a lot easier to focus on what needs to be done when I'm not worrying about being the alpha."

Stiles ponders that for a minute. "Now that you're not the alpha, you're doing a better job of running your pack. Is that irony? Or is it like that Alanis Morissette song that isn't ironic at all?"

Derek doesn't answer, he just ducks his head and looks away. "You can't be a pack without an alpha," he says eventually.

Stiles wants to say so many things right now, ask so many questions. _'Does that mean that Derek's pack isn't a real pack?' 'Does he want to be an alpha again, or is he looking for a new alpha?' 'Will he leave to join that other pack, that other alpha who knew his family and was friends with his mother?'_

It takes longer than it should of them just sitting there quietly breathing for Stiles to realize that he and Derek are still basically holding hands. Stiles's hand twitches when that hits him, but Derek's the one to let go first.

"I should..." Stiles says, drawing his hand back to clutch at the blanket wrapped around his chest. "Um, I guess I should probably get dressed."

"And I should go," Derek says, standing decisively.

"You don't have to—"

"No, really." He flicks his eyes pointedly toward the door. "I should go. Now."

Before Stiles can even think to speak, Derek's out the window and there's a knock on his bedroom door.

"Stiles?" his dad says through the wood. "You have visitors."

 

* * *

 

Lydia and Isaac, of all people (or werewolves), drag Stiles over to Scott's house. The scene of the crime, so to speak. Scott's there, obviously, but Allison is also waiting for them when they arrive. She looks like she's been crying.

Laying open on the coffee table, just like that day so many weeks ago when they'd called Lydia for help, is the book.

"What's that doing here?" Stiles demands, pointing to the open pages. He looks to Scott, letting his gaze glide over Allison because he's not sure he wants to know about her red eyes just yet. How could it possibly get worse? _How?!_

It's Lydia who speaks. "You three failed to inform me that you never actually finished the ritual."

Stiles turns to her. "Well, it obviously got interrupted, didn't it?" he says, sweeping both hands up and down his body. He doesn't mean to be snippy with her. God, he never thought he'd be snippy with Lydia Martin, but even years of unrequited crushing can't dampen his penchant for sarcasm and mild hostility.

Lydia is, of course, unaffected by his tone and his words. She continues as if he hadn't even spoken. "So, we're going to do it again. Properly this time."

"You said trying it again wouldn't help," Stiles accuses.

"That was when I thought you'd completed it the first time," she snaps back. "Honestly, if you'd just come to me in the first place, this probably wouldn't have happened."

"Probably," Stiles muses. His eyes catch on Isaac standing beside the couch, close to but not touching Allison. "What's he doing here then?"

Everyone ignores his question. Scott and Isaac move the coffee table out of the way while Lydia goes about setting up the circle in the middle of the room. She pours the salt, a darker crystallized version than what they'd used last time, making the circle big enough for everyone to sit within it comfortably. There's five of them this time, sitting cross-legged and all facing each other. They don't hold hands, but Stiles is just close enough to bump Allison's knee with his.

Lydia leads this time, instead of Scott. She lights the bowl of herbs in the center of the circle, releasing a puff of purple smoke, and begins reciting the words. She doesn't even need to read them from the book. The incantation seems longer, but Stiles supposes that's so since it was cut short before. The smoke from the herbs has filtered to a haze, hanging low and heavy in the circle. He notices the others have their eyes closed, so Stiles closes his, too.

When Lydia's voice stops, the words all used up, he waits. The only sound in the room is that of five people breathing their expectations.

Stiles peeks through one eye.

Nothing happens.

Slowly, the rest of them open their eyes and look around. Isaac's expression speaks to confusion while Scott is visibly upset. Allison looks numb, as though she hadn't been expecting anything and so is unsurprised that that's what she got. There's a stubborn set to Lydia's jaw, her lips pursed. The smoke is starting to make Stiles's eyes itch.

Yes. It's the smoke.

Stiles says, "Fuck it." He uncurls from his seated position, reaches past the edge of the circle and grabs the book off the coffee table. He stands up, dragging Allison up with him into the center of the circle. He begins to read, but finds he doesn't need the book, either. He's read and reread it so many times that it's burned into his memory.

"Stiles, what are you doing?" comes Lydia's voice, but he does not stop.

He recites it through complete, then decides _to hell with it_ and does it backwards, as well. All the while gripping Allison's hands in both of his. The book is forgotten now, tossed aside. Stiles says the words, he says them over and over, forwards, backwards. Faintly in the background, he can hear other voices, but he just keeps going, and at the last second he remembers the way they'd both passed out last time and mentally kicks himself for not putting some cushions down first.

He thinks he feels someone catch him before he hits the floor, but that could be the future concussion talking.

 

* * *

 

A vast darkness stretches around him into eternity. He can see without seeing, feel without feeling. In the distance, the Nemeton looms before him, a beacon. It radiates a light that illuminates nothing, but fills his chest with home.

 

* * *

 

Someone is holding his hand. Or perhaps he is holding someone's hand. Both of their palms are sweaty, uncomfortably slick on his skin. The hand in his smaller than his own, fingers thin and tapered.

"I think they're awake," says a voice not very far away. It sounds like Scott. He sounds tired.

Stiles opens his eyes. It's dim, but not the all-encompassing darkness of before. He doesn't need to see to know that he's in a room and the room is crowded. He can feel bodies pressing in on all sides. The hand in his squeezes, and Stiles looks down to see Allison's bright red manicure that Honey had given her only... Was it yesterday? His hand looks so wide compared to hers, though.

He shoots up into a sitting position, as does Allison beside him. He stares at her while she stares back. Even in the low light, he can see her perfectly well. He can see _her_.

"Oh my god!" Stiles says. He looks down at himself then.

Allison's grip loosens, her hand falling away from his, and Stiles holds both of his hands in front of his face. Wide palms with bony, big-knuckled fingers. He scrambles to his feet, standing up perhaps too quickly and feeling a moment of light-headedness, but he brushes them aside when someone tries to steady him. Instead he pats along his body with his own two hands and it's _fantastic_. No boobs.

"No boobs!" he says, raising both arms in a victory V. A moment later his hands travel further south and cup himself in his pants. "Oh thank you," he exhales a rush of relief, ignoring the chuckles he hears around the room.

He looks to his left to Allison doing her own checks; her hands are on her face, rubbing over her cheeks and chin. She's smiling through tears. Isaac and Lydia are beside her, looking just as pleased and shocked. Scott is standing right next to Stiles, a wide grin on his face, and only then does Stiles wonder why all the lights are out.

"Why are the lights out?" he asks.

"Pretty sure we blew a fuse," says Erica from the other side of the room. Stiles whips his head in that direction, surprised to see not only her, but Boyd, Cora, and Derek all crowded together in a corner.

"When did you guys get here?" he asks.

"More than a fuse, I'd say. The whole neighborhood's dark." And that's his dad's voice, over by the doorway, stepping around Melissa and over a pile of broken rubble on the floor to get to Stiles. He claps a big hand on Stiles's shoulder, the other around the back of his neck, and pulls him into a hug. "You had us scared for a while there, kid."

"No more rituals in the house," Melissa says, arms folded in front of her. "That's what the backyard is for."

"What... happened?" Stiles asks, taking in the scene around him. The living room is a disaster area. Everything outside of the circle, anyway. The furniture has been moved or knocked over, every picture frame or knick-knack has been thrown to the floor and smashed. A floor lamp appears to have fallen into the front window and shattered everywhere.

"You should've seen it," says Scott, anxiously. "You and Allison just dropped and then, like, blew us out of the circle. And then..."

"Then what?"

"You were totally trapped in a disco ball!" Erica throws in, laughing.

"What?"

"It was like this great big glitter dome around you," says Isaac, describing a big circle with his hands. "We couldn't get through."

"So how?" Allison asks, one hand on her head the other on Isaac's arm.

"We needed the whole pack," Scott explains. "For the ritual to work. We needed the _whole_ pack here. Everyone who wanted to be pack, that is."

Stiles looks around the room again, taking in all of their faces. Scott, Lydia, Allison. His dad and Scott's mom. Isaac. Erica, Cora, and Boyd. Derek.

Pack.

"Is that what this is?" he asks, spreading his hand wide on his sternum. Beneath his muscles and ribs, beneath his very masculine chest, deep inside the center of him, he feels something. It's small, and warm, and feels like home.

"That's the pack bond," says Derek, stepping into the room a little ways. "It's stronger with us all here together, but you'll always be able to feel it." His eyes dart away, briefly. "Until you don't want to anymore."

"It's not the Nemeton?" Stiles asks. He glances at Allison, but returns to Derek. He hadn't fully realized before that, after their sacrifice, that darkness and dread inside him was actually a hollow cavern. And now it's filled again. Complete.

Derek comes closer still, further into the room, and the others follow until they're all nearly touching one another. "The Nemeton will always be there. We may feel it, but it has no hold over us. It has no ties to you."

"It worked, then." That's Allison, with a hand on her own chest. Stiles can't determine the meaning behind her tone, whether she's worried about being bound to a pack or just grateful to be herself again.

"It worked," Stiles agrees. His lips curl upward, his whole body buoyant like a weight's been lifted.

"Now what?" asks Cora, blunt as ever. She's looking toward Derek, but her gaze falters and flickers in Scott's direction. Derek's already looking to Scott. Everyone else seems to follow suit. Scott seems paralyzed, all eyes on him.

"Ummm…"

"Now," Stiles's dad says, his arm still around Stiles's shoulders, "you all clean up Melissa's house while I head out to deal with this power outage you caused." He gives them all his best stern sheriff face and nobody argues.

"Right, you heard the man," says Stiles, slapping Scott on the back. "Dude, get your pack in line."

Scott elbows him in the ribs, but he claps his hands together and starts directing everyone, picking his way through the debris. Lydia goes to the kitchen to get some trash bags. Allison volunteers to run out and buy some plastic to cover up the broken window. The werewolves take care of righting the furniture and other heavy-lifting.

"Sir," says Derek, crossing the room to reach the sheriff, which brings him right next to Stiles. "I might know someone who can help with the electricity. Since it's not a natural outage, you might need someone to jumpstart the power."

He eyes Derek up and down for a moment. Stiles can't help glancing back and forth between them, a whole new kind of tension in the air. Finally, his dad puts a hand on Derek's shoulder and offers an accepting nod.

"That would be much appreciated," he says to Derek. They move to go and Stiles starts after them, but his dad fixes him with a look. "You've got some cleaning up to do. We'll be back as soon as we can."

Stiles starts to protest, but his dad just heads on out. Derek throws a smirk at Stiles over his shoulder as he follows the sheriff out the door.

 

* * *

 

A few hours and several full garbage bags later, they get the house shipshape. Sometime while they were working, the lights had come back on. Stiles can't stop flexing his shoulders and stretching his back and watching the way his hands move. With the risk of sounding a little narcissistic, Stiles is totally in awe of himself. He's just so glad to be _right_ again.

Melissa's made a list of things the pack will be working toward replacing for her — two lamps, a broken end table, new glass for the window. Allison's dad knows a good carpenter who can take care of some of the repairs, he tells them when Allison brings him back with her to seal up the busted window. It had taken them awhile to come back, so Stiles assumes they'd had quite the… reunion. She looks happy, anyway, dressed more like Allison than Mallison now, and that's all that matters to Stiles.

Just as they're finishing up and everyone is standing around exhausted and sweaty, his dad returns with Derek and a few other people in tow. And enough pizza to feed a… well a hungry pack of teenage werewolves.

Derek introduces the Yukimuras — the kitsune, a tall, beautiful Japanese woman with long, flowing hair and a sharp gaze; her husband, their new history teacher whom most of them have already met; and their daughter, the new girl at school that Scott's been making eyes at.

The werewolves all give cursory greetings, more interested in the pizzas at the moment, but everyone makes space around the living room. Melissa brings plates and napkins from the kitchen. She offers the newly righted sofa to Mr. and Mrs. Yukimura, while she and Stiles's father take the armchairs that, thankfully, came out of the whole ordeal unscathed. The 'kids' spread out on the floor, vying for proximity to the coffee table covered in pizza boxes.

"Oh, wait," says Melissa, halfway to sitting down. "I forgot drinks. I'll just—"

"We bought a few two-liters," Stiles's dad says, indicating a couple of grocery bags holding various kinds of soda. "Stiles can go grab cups for everyone," he says pointedly in his son's direction.

With a groan, Stiles rises from his crouch where he was busy wrestling Erica for a prime spot. She sticks her tongue out at him, claiming the spot for her own. Stiles narrows his eyes at her, but he smiles at Melissa and lets her finally relax into her chair.

"Anything else while I'm up?" he asks sarcastically, already walking through into the kitchen.

"Don't forget ice!" Isaac calls after him.

Rolling his eyes at that, Stiles opens the cupboard and collects all of the McCalls' plastic cups, the ones with cartoon characters and superheroes on them that he and Scott have been drinking out of for years, and stacks them up in his arms. He's debating on how to carry ice trays, too, when he turns around and jumps out of his skin.

Derek catches the cups that go flying easily, just snatching them out of the air. Stiles catches his breath and his racing heart. There's nothing to be done about his blush of embarrassment.

"We need to have a serious talk about sneaking up on people," Stiles tells him, wagging a finger in his face.

"I got ice," is Derek's reply. He holds two bags of ice aloft in one hand before placing them in the sink. Stiles gets a big bowl from a different cupboard and tells him to dump some ice in that. Everyone can fill their own cups.

While Stiles restacks the cups in his arms, he watches Derek slice the top of one bag open with his claws and pour the ice into the bowl.

"So," Stiles says, leaning against the counter next to him. "I'm me again."

Derek finishes filling the bowl before he looks over at Stiles. "You were always you."

They hold eye contact, but Stiles has to look away, a warmth filling his chest and rushing up to tinge his face even further red. Derek ties up the bag of ice and moves around Stiles to put it in the freezer. Stiles takes the opportunity to speak while Derek's back is to him.

"And we're pack now. You have a pack again," he says, pushing away the fluttering of his heart. Derek's head dips ever so slightly in a nod. "That means you're sticking around, right?"

"Beacon Hills is my home," Derek says, slowly turning to face him. "I was always staying."

"You'll forgive me if that wasn't always apparent. But, good." Stiles ducks his head again to hide the curve of his smile. He feels Derek reach past him for the bowl of ice, his elbow brushing Stiles's arm. "So pack, huh?" he asks, before he really has time to think about it. "That doesn't mean we’re, like, brothers now, right? I know you said that to Scott once, and Scott's totally my brother, but you and me—" He flicks his index finger back and forth between them. "I mean, there aren't any rules or anything against, uh, fraternization within a pack?"

He can't bring himself to look directly at Derek, only glancing at him out of the corner of his eyes, but he could swear there's a softness to his mouth and a pink stain rising across his cheeks out of that magnificent beard.

"No, Stiles," Derek says, at last. "There's no rule against… that."

"Oh. Okay." Stiles nods. "Good," he says again, letting Derek see his smile this time.

In the living room, Derek sets the bowl of ice onto one of the unbroken end tables, and Stiles passes the cups around until everyone has one. His dad, Melissa, Lydia, and Mrs. Yukimura are discussing the recent upswing in Beacon Hills businesses. Chris Argent, Scott, and, to Stiles's surprise, Cora are rapt listening to Mr. Yukimura and Kira telling a story about Japan. Boyd and Erica seem to be in a world all their own, now sharing Stiles's prime bit of floor real estate.

Stiles slides into a seat on the floor next to Allison. It's not as great as his first choice spot, but he discovers the box of Hawaiian is right in front of him. Grabbing a plate, Stiles lifts the lid and finds a single, lonely pineapple chunk stuck to the cardboard inside.

"I was gone for five minutes! _Seriously?!_ " He turns to glower at Isaac and suddenly there's a plate with two big ham and pineapple slices under his nose. Allison sways the plate back and forth in enticement, grinning at him.

"You're still my favorite," Stiles tells her, snatching the plate before anyone else can. On the other side of her, he can see Isaac eyeing it up. Stiles feels the urge to lick each slice just to stake his claim.

"I think I might be coming back to school," Allison says, flashing a quick smile at Isaac.

"Yeah?" asks Stiles, picking off a piece of ham and popping it into his mouth.

"Yeah." She nods decisively. Then her gaze flicks past Stiles, her grin widening. "Just in time for Junior Prom next month," she whispers in his ear as he feels the warmth of a person sliding into place on the floor next to him. Stiles glances over his shoulder and comes eye to eye with Derek and his single raised eyebrow.

Whipping back around, Stiles leans as close to Allison as possible and hisses, "Shut it! You're in real danger of losing your rank here!"

"Yeah, right," she says, shoving him back. "We have a special bond, Stiles, unlike any other. There's no breaking it now." Her words are solemn, but there's a sparkle in her eyes and, yeah, she'll always be something special to him.

"You know," he says after taking a big bite of pizza and talking with his mouth full, not even caring right now. "If this were a movie, like _Freaky Friday_ or something, we'd have learned some valuable lesson about appreciating what we have or some bullshit like that."

Allison shoves a napkin in his face to cover his mouth from her sight, but she's laughing and nodding along. "Probably," she says. "But sometimes shit just happens."

"Exactly," Stiles says, taking the napkin and wiping his chin.

"Besides," Allison says then. "I think we're probably going to be learning a lot in the coming months."

Looking around the crowded room, watching all these people that have come together, feeling the heat and weight of Derek's leg where it rests against his, Stiles thinks she's probably right.

 

_But thank all that is holy in this world that he only has to worry about the werewolves' monthly problem now._

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was planned to be 20-25k words tops. HAH! I didn't realize I had so much to say about these characters. It was quite the journey for all of us.
> 
> Full disclosure, I almost ended this with no switch back. It sort of feels like a cop out. But leaving it open would have also felt incomplete, and I know I am just not the writer equipped to take the story down that long and probably painful road. It exists in my head, though, a version where Stiles and Allison have to find real world ways of dealing with this. (Spoilers: they both do fine in the long run, fantastic even!)
> 
> Other things of note: 1.) I realize Ellen Page hadn't come out yet in 2012, but we're going to pretend shh! 2.) SuperMart is not a real store as far as I know. I made it up so I wouldn't have to use that which shall not be named (rhymes with schmall-blart). Also, kind of a nod to the S-Mart ;) _Shop smart! Shop S-Mart!_ 3.) For trimming Allison's beard, I actually watched some youtube videos like [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8uvTAuxV7s) because I don't have a beard and have never had to shave one off, either. (Apparently, it's not really that complicated, but uh... I had story reasons.)
> 
> Here are a few links I stumbled upon during some of my research for this story, just the ones I found particularly interesting or helpful:  
> 1\. [Gender Dysphoria vs. Body Dysmorphia](http://roygbiv.jezebel.com/stop-confusing-gender-dysphoria-with-body-dysmorphia-al-1583049920) \- a sort of generalized article but informative nonetheless.  
> 2\. [Chest Binding 101](http://transguys.com/features/chest-binding) \- a very helpful guide that I'm sure Stiles used when making his own purchases.  
> 3\. And this one didn't quite make it into the story, but Stiles was totally looking [these up](http://www.peecockproducts.com/) (kind of NSFW)
> 
> Anyway. I really hope you enjoyed the story!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [the old me's gone](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4204611) by [ideare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ideare/pseuds/ideare)




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